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Title: The Origin and Growth of the Healing Art

Author: Edward Berdoe

Release date: April 22, 2019 [eBook #59331]
                Most recently updated: June 15, 2020

Language: English

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THE HEALING ART.


      *      *      *      *      *      *

                      _WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR._


THE BROWNING CYCLOPÆDIA.

 A Guide to the Study of the Works of Robert Browning, with copious
 Explanatory Notes and References on all difficult passages. Second
 Edition. Pp. xx., 572. Price 10_s._ 6_d._


SOME OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.

  “Conscientious and painstaking.”—_Times._
  “A serviceable book, and deserves to be widely bought.”—_The Spectator._
  “A book of far-reaching research and careful industry.”—_Scotsman._
  “A most learned and creditable piece of work.”—_Vanity Fair._
  “A monument of industry and devotion.”—_Bookman._


BROWNING’S MESSAGE TO HIS TIME:

 His Religion, Philosophy, and Science. With Portrait and Facsimile
 Letters. Third Edition. Price 3_s._ 6_d._
                                                  [Dilettante Library.]


OPINIONS OF THE PRESS.

“Full of admiration and sympathy.”—_Saturday Review._

“Should have a wide circulation; it is interesting and
stimulative.”—_Literary World._

“We have no hesitation in strongly recommending this little volume to
any who desire to understand the moral and mental attitude of Robert
Browning.... We are much obliged to Dr. Berdoe for his volume.”—_Oxford
University Herald._

      *      *      *      *      *      *


[Illustration:  EXPELLING THE DISEASE-DEMON.      [_Frontispiece._]


THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE HEALING ART

A Popular History of Medicine in All Ages and Countries.

by

EDWARD BERDOE,

Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh; Member of the
Royal College of Surgeons, England; Licentiate of the
Society of Apothecaries, London, etc., etc.
Author of “The Browning Cyclopædia,” etc., etc.


[Illustration: Publishers device]






London
Swan Sonnenschein & Co.
Paternoster Square
1893

Butler & Tanner,
The Selwood Printing Works,
Frome, and London.




PREFACE.


The History of Medicine is a _terra incognita_ to the general reader,
and an all but untravelled region to the great majority of medical
men. On special occasions, such as First of October Addresses at the
opening of the Medical Schools, or the Orations delivered before the
various Medical Societies, certain periods of medical history are
referred to, and a few of the great names of the founders of medical
and surgical science are held up to the admiration of the audience.
From time to time excellent monographs on the subject appear in the
_Lancet_ and _British Medical Journal_. But with the exception of these
brilliant electric flashes, the History of Medicine is a dark continent
to English students who have not made long and tedious researches in
our great libraries. For it is a remarkable fact that the History of
Medicine has been almost completely neglected by English writers.
This cannot be due either to the want of importance or interest of
the subject. Next to the history of religion ranks in interest and
value that of medicine, and it would not be difficult to show that
religion itself cannot be understood in its development and connections
without reference to medicine. The priest and the physician are own
brothers, and the Healing Art has always played an important part in
the development of all the great civilisations. The modern science of
Anthropology has placed at the disposal of the historian of medicine
a great number of facts which throw light on the medical theories of
primitive and savage man. But most of these have hitherto remained
uncollected, and are not easily accessible to the general reader.

Although English writers have so strangely neglected this important
field of research, the Germans have explored it in the most exhaustive
manner. The great works of Sprengel, Haeser, Baas, and Puschmann,
amongst many others of the same class, sustain the claim that Germany
has created the History of Medicine, whilst the well-known but
incomplete treatise of Le Clerc shows what a great French writer could
do to make this _terra incognita_ interesting.

Not that Englishmen have entirely neglected this branch of literature.
Dr. Freind, beginning with Galen’s period, wrote a _History of Physic
to the Commencement of the Sixteenth Century_. Dr. Edward Meryon
commenced a _History of Medicine_, of which Vol. I. only appeared
(1861). In special departments Drs. Adams, Greenhill, Aikin, Munk,
Wise, Royle, and others have made important contributions to the
literature of the subject; but we have nothing to compare with
the great German works whose authors we have mentioned above. The
encyclopædic work of Dr. Baas has been translated into English by Dr.
Handerson of Cleveland, Ohio.

Sprengel’s work is translated into French, and Dr. Puschmann’s
admirable volume on Medical Education has been given in English by Mr.
Evan Hare.

None of these important and interesting works, valuable as they are to
the professional man, are quite suitable for the general reader, who,
it seems to the present writer, is entitled in these latter days to be
admitted within the inner courts of the temple of Medical History, and
to be permitted to trace the progress of the mystery of the Healing
Art from its origin with the medicine-man to its present abode in our
Medical Schools.

With the exception of an occasional note or brief reference in his
text-books of medicine and surgery, the student of medicine has little
inducement to direct his attention to the work of the great pioneers of
the science he is acquiring.

One consequence of this defect in his education is manifested in the
common habit of considering that all the best work of discoverers in
the Healing Art has been done in our own times. “History of medicine!”
exclaimed a hospital surgeon a few months since. “Why, there was none
till forty years ago!” This habit of treating contemptuously the
scientific and philosophical work of the past is due to imperfect
acquaintance with, or absolute ignorance of, the splendid labours
of the men of old time, and can only be remedied by devoting some
little study to the records of travellers who have preceded us on the
same path we are too apt to think we have constructed for ourselves.
Professor Billroth declared, “that the great medical faculties should
make it a point of honour to take care that lectures on the history of
medicine are not missing in their curricula.” And at several German
universities some steps in this direction have been taken. In England,
however—so far as I am aware—nothing of the sort has been attempted,
and a young man may attain the highest honours of his profession
without the ghost of an idea about the long and painful process through
which it has become possible for him to acquire his knowledge.

Says Dr. Nathan Davis,[1] “A more thorough study of the history of
medicine, and in consequence, a greater familiarity with the successive
steps or stages in the development of its several branches, would
enable us to see more clearly the real relations and value of any
new fact, induction, or remedial agent that might be proposed. It
would also enable us to avoid a common error of regarding facts,
propositions, and remedies presented under new names, as really new,
when they had been well known and used long before, but in connection
with other names or theories.” He adds that, “The only remedy for these
popular and unjust errors is a frequent recurrence to the standard
authors of the past generation, or in other words, an honest and
thorough study of the history of medicine as a necessary branch of
medical education.”

In these times, when no department of science is hidden from the
uninitiated, especially when medical subjects and the works of medical
men are freely discussed in our great reviews and daily journals, no
apology seems necessary for withdrawing the professional veil and
admitting the laity behind the scenes of professional work.

Medicine now has no mysteries to conceal from the true student of
nature and the scientific inquirer. Her methods and her principles are
open to all who care to know them; the only passport she requires is
reverence, her only desire to satisfy the yearning to know. In this
spirit and for these ends this work has been conceived and given to the
world. “The proper study of mankind is man.”

  EDWARD BERDOE.

  TYNEMOUTH HOUSE,
  VICTORIA PARK GATE,
  LONDON, _April 22nd, 1893_.




      SPRENGEL GIVES THE FOLLOWING TABLE OF THE GREAT PERIODS IN
                       THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE:—


     I. Expedition of the        | 1273-1263 B.C. |    I. First traces of
          Argonauts.             |                |        Greek Medicine.
    II. Peloponnesian War.       |  432-404 B.C.  |   II. Medicine of
                                 |                |        Hippocrates.
   III. Establishment of the     |    30 A.D.     |  III. School of the
          Christian Religion.    |                |        Methodists.
    IV. Emigration of the hordes |    430-530     |   IV. Decadence of
          of Barbarians.         |                |        the Science.
     V. The Crusades.            |   1096-1230    |    V. Arabian medicine
                                 |                |        at its highest
                                 |                |        point of
                                 |                |        splendour.
    VI. Reformation.             |   1517-1530    |   VI. Re-establishment
                                 |                |        of Greek medicine
                                 |                |        and anatomy.
   VII. Thirty Years War.        |   1618-1648    |  VII. Discovery of the
                                 |                |        circulation of
                                 |                |        the blood and
                                 |                |        reform of Van
                                 |                |        Helmont.
  VIII. Reign of Frederick the   |   1640-1786    | VIII. Haller.
          Great.                 |                |

Renouard[2] arranges the periods of the growth of the art of medicine
as follows:—1st. The Primitive or Instinctive Period, lasting from the
earliest recorded treatment to the fall of Troy. 2nd. The Sacred or
Mystic Period, lasting till the dispersion of the Pythagorean Society,
500 B.C. 3rd. The Philosophical Period, closing with the foundation of
the Alexandrian Library, B.C. 320. 4th. The Anatomical Period, which
continued till the death of Galen, A.D. 200.




ILLUSTRATIONS.


  EXPELLING THE DISEASE-DEMON                          _Frontispiece_

  THE MEDICINE-DANCE OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS    _To face p._ 32

  EXAMPLES OF ANCIENT SURGERY                                „    204

  ANCIENT SURGICAL INSTRUMENTS                               „    246

  INTERIOR OF A DOCTOR’S HOUSE                               „    340




CONTENTS.


                                BOOK I.

                   _THE MEDICINE OF PRIMITIVE MAN._

  CHAPTER                                                           PAGE

  I. PRIMITIVE MAN A SAVAGE                                            3

  The Medicine and Surgery of the Lower Animals.—Poisons and
  Animals.—Observation amongst Savages.—Man in the Glacial
  Period.

  II. ANIMISM                                                          7

  Who discovered our Medicines?—Anthropology can assist us to
  answer the Question.—The Priest and the Medicine-man originally
  one.—Disease the Work of Magic.—Origin of our Ideas of the Soul
  and Future Life.—Disease-demons.

  III. SAVAGE THEORIES OF DISEASE                                     12

  Demoniacal.—Witchcraft.—Offended Dead Persons.

  IV. MAGIC AND SORCERY IN THE TREATMENT OF DISEASE                   26

  These originated partly in the Desire to cover Ignorance.
  —Medicine-men.—Sucking out Diseases.—Origin of Exorcism.—Ingenuity
  of the Priests.—Blowing Disease away.—Beelzebub cast
  out by Beelzebub.—Menders of Souls.—“Bringing up the Devil.”—Diseases
  and Medicines.—Fever Puppets.—Amulets.—Totemism
  and Medicine.

  V. PRIMITIVE MEDICINE                                               33

  Bleeding.—Scarification.—Use of Medicinal Herbs amongst the
  Aborigines of Australia, South America, Africa, etc.

  VI. PRIMITIVE SURGERY                                               40

  Arrest of Bleeding.—The Indian as Surgeon.—Stretchers, Splints,
  and Flint Instruments.—Ovariotomy.—Brain Surgery.—Massage.—Trepanning.
  —The Cæsarean Operation.—Inoculation.

  VII. UNIVERSALITY OF THE USE OF INTOXICANTS                         46

  Egyptian Beer and Brandy.—Mexican Pulque.—Plant-worship.—Union
  with the Godhead by Alcohol.—Soma.—The Cow-religion.—Caxiri.—Murwa
  Beer.—Bacchic Rites.—Spiritual Exaltation by
  Wine.

  VIII. CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH PREGNANCY AND CHILD-BEARING            51

  The Couvade, its Prevalence in Savage and Civilized Lands.—Pregnant
  Women excluded from Kitchens.—The Deities of the
  Lying-in Chamber.


                               BOOK II.

             _THE MEDICINE OF THE ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS._

  I. EGYPTIAN MEDICINE                                                57

  Antiquity of Egyptian Civilization.—Surgical Bandaging.—Gods
  and Goddesses of Medicine.—Medical Specialists.—Egyptians
  claimed to have discovered the Healing Art.—Medicine largely
  Theurgic.—Magic and Sorcery forbidden to the Laity.—The
  Embalmers.—Anatomy.—Therapeutics.—Plants in use in Ancient
  Egypt.—Surgery and Chemistry.—Disease-demons.—Medical Papyri.—Great
  Skill of Egyptian Physicians.

  II. JEWISH MEDICINE                                                 73

  The Jews indebted to Egypt for their Learning.—The only Ancient
  People who discarded Demonology.—They had no Magic of their
  own.—Phylacteries.—Circumcision.—Sanitary Laws.—Diseases in
  the Bible.—The Essenes.—Surgery in the Talmud.—Alexandrian
  Philosophy.—Jewish Services to Mediæval Medicine.—The Phœnicians.

  III. THE MEDICINE OF CHALDÆA, BABYLONIA, AND ASSYRIA                86

  The Ancient Religion of Accadia akin to Shamanism.—Demon
  Theory of Disease in Chaldæan Medicine.—Chaldæan Magic.—Medical
  Ignorance of the Babylonians.—Assyrian Disease-demons.—Charms.—Origin
  of the Sabbath.

  IV. THE MEDICINE OF THE HINDUS                                      96

  The Aryans.—Hindu Philosophy.—The Vedas.—The Shastres
  of Charaka and Susruta.—Code of Menu.—The Brahmans.—Medical
  Practitioners.—Strabo on the Hindu Philosophers.—Charms.—Buddhism
  and Medicine.—Jíwaka, Buddha’s Physician.—The
  Pulse.—Knowledge of Anatomy and Surgery in Ancient Times.—Surgical
  Instruments.—Decadence of Hindu Medical Science.—Goddesses
  of Disease.—Origin of Hospitals in India.

  V. MEDICINE IN CHINA, TARTARY, AND JAPAN                           125

  Origin of Chinese Culture.—Shamanism.—Disease-demons.—Taoism—Medicine
  Gods.—Mediums.-Anatomy and Physiology of
  the Chinese.—Surgery.—No Hospitals in China.—Chinese Medicines.—Filial
  Piety.—Charms and Sacred Signs.—Medicine in
  Thibet, Tartary, and Japan.

  VI. THE MEDICINE OF THE PARSEES                                    141

  Zoroaster and the _Zend-Avesta_.—The Heavenly Gift of the Healing
  Plants.—Ormuzd and Ahriman.—Practice of the Healing Art
  and its Fees.


                               BOOK III.

                           _GREEK MEDICINE._

  I. THE MEDICINE OF THE GREEKS BEFORE THE TIME OF
  HIPPOCRATES                                                        147

  Apollo, the God of Medicine.—Cheiron.—Æsculapius.—Artemis.—Dionysus.
  —Ammon.—Hermes.—Prometheus.—Melampus.—Medicine of Homer.—Temples of
  Æsculapius.—The Early Ionic Philosophers.—Empedocles.—School of
  Crotona.—The Pythagoreans.—Grecian Theory of Diseases.—School of
  Cos.—The Asclepiads.—The Aliptæ.

  II. THE MEDICINE OF HIPPOCRATES AND HIS PERIOD                     172

  Hippocrates first delivered Medicine from the Thraldom of
  Superstition.—Dissection of the Human Body and Rise of
  Anatomy.—Hippocrates, Father of Medicine and Surgery.—The
  Law.—Plato.

  III. POST-HIPPOCRATIC GREEK MEDICINE.—THE SCHOOLS OF
  MEDICINE                                                           187

  The Dogmatic School.—Praxagoras of Cos.-Aristotle.—The
  School of Alexandria.—Theophrastus the Botanist.—The great
  Anatomists, Erasistratus and Hierophilus, and the Schools they
  founded.—The Empiric School.

  IV. THE EARLIER ROMAN MEDICINE                                     205

  Disease-goddesses.—School of the Methodists.—Rufus and
  Marinus.—Pliny.—Celsus.

  V. LATER ROMAN MEDICINE                                            227

  The Eclectic and Pneumatic Sects.—Galen.—Neo-Platonism.—Oribasius
  and Ætius.—Influence of Christianity and the Rise of
  Hospitals.—Paulus Ægineta.—Ancient Surgical Instruments.

  VI. AMULETS AND CHARMS IN MEDICINE                                 247

  Universality of the Amulet.—Scarabs.—Beads.—Savage Amulets.—Gnostic
  and Christian Amulets.—Herbs and Animals as
  Charms.—Knots.—Precious Stones.—Signatures.—Numbers.—Saliva.
  —Talismans.—Scripts.—Characts.—Sacred Names.—Stolen Goods.


                               BOOK IV.

              _CELTIC, TEUTONIC, AND MEDIÆVAL MEDICINE._

  I. MEDICINE OF THE DRUIDS, TEUTONS, ANGLO-SAXONS, AND
  WELSH                                                              269

  Origin of the Druid Religion.—Druid Medicine.—Their Magic.—Teutonic
  Medicine.—Gods of Healing.—Elves.—The Elements.—Anglo-Saxon
  Leechcraft.—The Leech-book.—Monastic Leechdoms.—Superstitions.—Welsh
  Medicine.—The Triads.—Welsh
  Druidism.—The Laws of the Court Physicians.—Welsh Medical
  Maxims.—Welsh Medical and Surgical Practice and Fees.

  II. MOHAMMEDAN MEDICINE                                            287

  Sources of Arabian Learning.—Influence of Greek and Hindu
  Literature.—The Nestorians.—Baghdad and its Colleges.—The
  Moors in Spain.—The Mosque Schools.—Arabian Inventions and
  Services to Literature.—The great Arab Physicians.—Serapion,
  Rhazes, Ali Abbas, Avicenna, Albucasis, and Averroes.

  III. RISE OF THE MONASTERIES                                       300

  Alchemy the Parent of Chemistry.

  IV. RISE OF THE UNIVERSITIES                                       303

  School of Montpellier.—Divorce of Medicine from Surgery.

  V. THE SCHOOL OF SALERNO                                           308

  The Monks of Monte Cassino.—Clerical Influence at Salerno.
  —Charlemagne.—Arabian   Medicine gradually supplanted the Græco-Latin
  Science.—Constantine the Carthaginian.—Archimatthæus.—Trotula.—Anatomy
  of the Pig.—Pharmacopœias.—The Four Masters.—Roger and
  Rolando.—The Emperor Frederick.

  VI. THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY                                         319

  The Crusades.—Astrology.

  VII. THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY                                        325

  Revival of Human Anatomy.—Famous Physicians of the Century.—Domestic
  Medicine in Chaucer.—Fellowship of the Barbers
  and Surgeons.—The Black Death.—The Dancing Mania.—Pharmacy.

  VIII. THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY                                        333

  Faith-healing.—Charms and Astrology in Medicine.—The Revival
  of Learning.—The Humanists.—Cabalism and Theology.—The
  Study of Natural History.—The Sweating Sickness.—Tarantism.
  —Quarantine.—High Position of Oxford University.

  IX. MEDICINE IN ANCIENT MEXICO AND PERU                            341

  Hospitals in Mexico.—Anatomy and Human Sacrifices.—Midwives
  as Spiritual Mothers.—Circumcision.—Peru.—Discovery of
  Cinchona Bark.


                                BOOK V.

               _THE DAWN OF MODERN SCIENTIFIC MEDICINE._

  I. THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY                                           345

  The Dawn of Modern Science.—The Reformation of Medicine.—Paracelsus.
  —The Sceptics.—The Protestantism of Science.—Influenza.—Legal
  Recognition of Medicine in England.—The
  Barber-Surgeons.—The Sweating Sickness.—Origin of the Royal
  College of Physicians of London.—“Merry Andrew.”—Origin of
  St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.—Caius.—Low State of Midwifery.—The
  Great Continental Anatomists.—Vesalius.—Servetus.—Paré.—Influence
  of the Reformation.—The Rosicrucians.—Touching for the
  Evil.—Vivisection of Human Beings.—Origin of Legal Medicine.

  II. THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY                                        377

  Bacon and the Inductive Method.—Descartes and Physiology.—Newton.
  —Boyle and the Royal Society.—The Founders of the
  Schools of Medical Science.—Sydenham, the English Hippocrates.—Harvey
  and the Rise of Physiology.—The Microscope in Medicine.—Willis
  and the Reform of Materia Medica.

  III. SKATOLOGICAL MEDICINE AND THE REFORM OF PHARMACOLOGY          394

  Loathsome Medicines.—Sympathetical Cures.—Weapon Salve.—Superstitions.

  IV. BATHS AND MINERAL WATERS                                       400

  Miraculous Springs.—The Pool of Bethesda.—Herb-baths.

  V. WITCHCRAFT AND MEDICINE                                         403

  Comparative Witchcraft.—Laws against Sorcery.—Magic in Virgil
  and Horace.—Demonology.—Images of Wax and Clay.—Transference
  of Disease.—Witchcraft in the Koran.—White Magic and
  Black.—Coral and the Evil Eye.—“Overlooking” People.—Exorcism
  in the Catholic Church.

  VI. MEDICAL SUPERSTITIONS                                          413

  Death and the Grave.—Sorcerer’s Ointment.—Teeth-worms.—Disease
  Transference.—Doctrine of Signatures.

  VII. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY                                        418

  The Sciences accessory to Medicine.—The Great Schools of Medical
  Theory.—Boerhaave and his System.—Stahl.—Hoffman.—Cullen.—Brown.
  —Hospitals.—Bichat and the New Era of Anatomy.—Mesmer and
  Mesmerism.—Surgery.—The Anatomists, Physiologists, and Scientists
  of the Period.—Inoculation and Vaccination.


                               BOOK VI.

                         _THE AGE OF SCIENCE._

  I. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.—PHYSICAL SCIENCE ALLIED
  TO MEDICINE                                                        443

  Exit the Disease-demon.—Medical Systems again.—Homœopathy.—The
  Natural Sciences.—Chemistry, Electricity, Physiology,
  Anatomy, Medicine and Pathology.—Psychiatry.—Surgery.—Ophthalmology.

  II. MEDICAL REFORMS                                                464

  Discovery of Anæsthetics.—Medical Literature.—Nursing Reform.—History
  of the Treatment of the Insane.

  III. THE GERM THEORY OF DISEASE                                    471

  The Disease-demon reappears as a Germ.—Phagocytes.—Ptomaines.—Lister’s
  Antiseptic Surgery.—Sanitary Science or Hygiene.—Bacteriologists.
  —Faith Cures.—Experimental Physiology and
  the Latest System of Medicine.


  APPENDIX.

  ON SOME OF THE MORE IMPORTANT MINERALS USED IN MEDICINE            486




                                BOOK I.

                   _THE MEDICINE OF PRIMITIVE MAN._




                    A POPULAR HISTORY OF MEDICINE.




CHAPTER I.

PRIMITIVE MAN A SAVAGE.

 The Medicine and Surgery of the Lower Animals.—Poisons and
 Animals.—Observation amongst Savages.—Man in the Glacial Period.


There is abundant proof from natural history that the lower animals
submit to medical and surgical treatment, and subject themselves in
their necessities to appropriate treatment. Not only do they treat
themselves when injured or ill, but they assist each other. Dogs and
cats use various natural medicines, chiefly emetics and purgatives, in
the shape of grasses and other plants. The fibrous-rooted wheat-grass,
_Triticum caninum_, sometimes called dog’s-wheat, is eaten medicinally
by dogs. Probably other species, such as _Agrostis caninia_, brown
bent-grass, are used in like manner.[3]

Mr. George Jesse describes another kind of “dog-grass,” _Cynosurus
cristatus_, as a natural medicine, both emetic and purgative, which is
resorted to by the canine species when suffering from indigestion and
other disorders of the stomach. Every druggist’s apprentice knows how
remarkably fond cats are of valerian root (_Valeriana officinalis_).
This strong-smelling root acts on these animals as an intoxicant, and
they roll over and over the plant with the wildest delight when brought
into contact with it. Cats are extravagantly fond of cat-mint (_Nepeta
cataria_). It has a powerful odour, like that of pennyroyal. There is
no evidence, however, that these plants have any medicinal properties
for which they are used by cats, they are merely enjoyed by them on
account of their perfume.

Dr. W. Lauder Lindsay, in his _Mind in the Lower Animals_, says that
the Indian mongoose, poisoned by the snake which it attacks, uses the
antidote to be found in the _Mimosa octandra_.[4]

“Its value both as a cure and as a preventive is said to be well known
to it. Whenever in its battles with serpents it receives a wound, it
at once retreats, goes in search of the antidote, and having found and
devoured it, returns to the charge, and generally carries the day,
seeming none the worse for its bite.”[5] This, however, is probably a
fable of the Hindus.

“A toad, bit or stung by a spider, repeatedly betook itself to a plant
of _Plantago major_ (the Greater Plantain), and ate a portion of its
leaf, but died after repeated bites of the spider, when the plant had
been experimentally removed by man.”[6]

The medicinal uses of the hellebore were anciently believed to have
been discovered by the goat.

“Virgil reports of dittany,” says More, in his _Antidote to Atheism_,
“that the wild goats eat it when they are shot with darts.” The
ancients said that the art of bleeding was first taught by the
hippopotamus, which thrusts itself against a sharp-pointed reed in the
river banks, when it thinks it needs phlebotomy.

If man had not yet learned the medicinal properties of salt, he could
discover them by the greedy licking of it by buffaloes, horses, and
camels. “On the Mongolian camels,” says Prejevalsky, “salt, in whatever
form, acts as an aperient, especially if they have been long without
it.” Rats will submit to the gnawing off of a leg when caught in a
trap, so that they may escape capture (Jesse). Livingstone says that
the chimpanzee, soko, or other anthropoid apes will staunch bleeding
wounds by means of their fingers, or of leaves, turf, or grass stuffed
into them. Animals treat wounds by licking—a very effectual if tedious
method of fomentation or poulticing.

Cornelius Agrippa, in his first book of Occult Philosophy, says that
we have learned the use of many remedies from the animals. “The sick
magpie puts a bay-leaf into her nest and is recovered. The lion, if
he be feverish, is recovered by the eating of an ape. By eating the
herb dittany, a wounded stag expels the dart out of its body. Cranes
medicine themselves with bulrushes, leopards with wolf’s-bane, boars
with ivy; for between such plants and animals there is an occult
friendship.”[7]

Some interesting observations relating to the surgical treatment of
wounds by birds were recently brought by M. Fatio before the Physical
Society of Geneva. He quotes the case of the snipe, which he has often
observed engaged in repairing damages. With its beak and feathers it
makes a very creditable dressing, applying plasters to bleeding wounds,
and even securing a broken limb by means of a stout ligature. On one
occasion he killed a snipe which had on the chest a large dressing
composed of down taken from other parts of the body, and securely
fixed to the wound by the coagulated blood. Twice he has brought home
snipe with interwoven feathers strapped on to the site of fracture of
one or other limb. The most interesting example was that of a snipe,
both of whose legs he had unfortunately broken by a misdirected shot.
He recovered the animal only the day following, and he then found that
the poor bird had contrived to apply dressings and a sort of splint to
both limbs. In carrying out this operation, some feathers had become
entangled around the beak, and, not being able to use its claws to get
rid of them, it was almost dead from hunger when discovered. In a case
recorded by M. Magnin, a snipe, which was observed to fly away with a
broken leg, was subsequently found to have forced the fragments into a
parallel position, the upper fragment reaching to the knee, and secured
them there by means of a strong band of feathers and moss intermingled.
The observers were particularly struck by the application of a ligature
of a kind of flat-leafed grass wound round the limb in a spiral form,
and fixed by means of a sort of glue.

Le Clerc thought that the stories of animals teaching men the use of
plants, herbs, etc., meant that men tried them first upon animals
before using them for food or medicine. There is no probability of
this having been so. If men had observed with Linnæus that horses eat
aconite with impunity, and had in consequence eaten it themselves,
the result would have been fatal. Birds and herbivorous animals eat
belladonna with impunity,[8] and it has very little effect on horses
and donkeys. Goats, sheep, and horses are said by Dr. Ringer to eat
hemlock without ill effects, yet it poisoned Socrates. Henbane has
little or no effect on sheep, cows, and pigs. Ipecacuanha does not
cause vomiting in rabbits,[9] and so on.

Probably from the earliest times man would be led to observe the
behaviour of animals when suffering from disease or injury. If he could
not learn much from them in the way of medicine, they could teach him
many useful arts. In savage man we must seek the beginnings of our
civilization, and it is in the lowest tribes and those which have not
yet felt the influences of superior races that we must search for the
most primitive forms of medical ideas and the earliest theories and
treatment of disease.

Sir John Lubbock says:[10] “It is a common opinion that savages are,
as a general rule, only the miserable remnants of nations once more
civilized; but although there are some well-established cases of
natural decay, there is no scientific evidence which would justify us
in asserting that this applies to savages in general.”

Dr. E. B. Tylor, in his fascinating work on _Primitive Culture_,
says:[11] “The thesis which I venture to sustain, within limits, is
simply this—that the savage state in some measure represents an early
condition of mankind, out of which the higher culture has gradually
been developed or evolved by processes still in regular operation
as of old, the result showing that, on the whole, progress has far
prevailed over relapse. On this proposition the main tendency of human
society during its long term of existence has been to pass from a
savage to a civilized state. It is mere matter of chronicle that modern
civilization is a development of mediæval civilization, which again is
a development from civilization of the order represented in Greece,
Assyria, or Egypt. Then the higher culture being clearly traced back to
what may be called the middle culture, the question which remains is,
whether this middle culture may be traced back to the lower culture,
that is, to savagery.”

Providing we can find our savage pure and uncontaminated, it matters
little where we seek him; north, south, east, or west, he will be
practically the same for our purpose.

Dr. Robertson says: “If we suppose two tribes, though placed in the
most remote regions of the globe, to live in a climate nearly of the
same temperature, to be in the same state of society, and to resemble
each other in the degree of their improvement, they must feel the same
wants, and exert the same endeavours to supply them.... In every part
of the earth the progress of man has been nearly the same, and we
can trace him in his career from the rude simplicity of savage life,
until he attains the industry, the arts, and the elegance of polished
society.”[12]

Writing of the primitive folk, the Eastern Inoits, Elie Reclus tells us
that,[13] “shut away from the rest of the world by their barriers of
ice, the Esquimaux, more than any other people, have remained outside
foreign influences, outside the civilization whose contact shatters and
transforms. They have been readily perceived by prehistoric science
to offer an intermediate type between man as he is and man as he was
in bygone ages. When first visited, they were in the very midst of
the stone and bone epoch,[14] just as were the Guanches when they
were discovered; their iron and steel are recent, almost contemporary
importations. The lives of Europeans of the Glacial period cannot have
been very different from those led amongst their snow-fields by the
Inoits of to-day.”




CHAPTER II.

ANIMISM.

 Who discovered our Medicines?—Anthropology can assist us to answer
 the Question.—The Priest and the Medicine-man originally one.—Disease
 the Work of Magic.—Origin of our Ideas of the Soul and Future
 Life.—Disease-demons.


Cardinal Newman, in his sermon on “The World’s Benefactors,” asks, “Who
was the first cultivator of corn? Who first tamed and domesticated the
animals whose strength we use, and whom we make our food? Or who first
discovered the medicinal herbs, which from the earliest times have been
our resource against disease? If it was mortal man who thus looked
through the vegetable and animal worlds, and discriminated between the
useful and the worthless, his name is unknown to the millions whom he
has thus benefited.

“It is notorious that those who first suggest the most happy inventions
and open a way to the secret stores of nature; those who weary
themselves in the search after truth; strike out momentous principles
of action; painfully force upon their contemporaries the adoption of
beneficial measures; or, again, are the original cause of the chief
events in national history,—are commonly supplanted, as regards
celebrity and reward, by inferior men. Their works are not called after
them, nor the arts and systems which they have given the world. Their
schools are usurped by strangers, and their maxims of wisdom circulate
among the children of their people, forming perhaps a nation’s
character, but not embalming in their own immortality the names of
their original authors.”

The reflection is an old one; the son of Sirach said, “And some there
be, which have no memorial; who are perished, as though they had never
been; and are become as though they had never been born; and their
children after them. But these were merciful men, whose righteousness
hath not been forgotten” (_Ecclesiasticus_ xliv. 9, 10). Cardinal
Newman has framed his question, so far as the healing art is concerned,
in a manner to which it is impossible to make a satisfactory answer. No
one man first discovered the medicinal herbs; probably the discovery
of all the virtues of a single one of them was not the work of any
individual. No man “looked through the vegetable and animal worlds
and discriminated between the useful and the worthless”; all this
has been the work of ages, and is the outcome of the experience of
thousands of investigators. The medical arts have played so important
a part in the development of our civilization, that they constitute a
branch of study second to none in utility and interest to those who
would know something of the work of the world’s benefactors. Probably
at no period in the world’s history have medical men occupied a more
honourable or a more prominent position than they do at the present
time, and it would almost seem that the rewards which an ignorant or
ungrateful civilization denied in the past to medical men are now being
bestowed on those who in these latter days have been so fortunate as to
inherit the traditions and the acquirements of a forgotten ancestry of
truth-seekers and students of the mysteries of nature. As the earliest
races of mankind passed by slow degrees from a state of savagery to
the primitive civilizations, we must seek for the beginnings of the
medical arts in the representatives of the ancient barbarisms which are
to be found to-day in the aborigines of Central Africa and the islands
of Australasian seas. The intimate connection which exists between
the magician, the sorcerer, and the “medicine man” of the present day
serves to illustrate how the priest, the magician, and the physician
of the past were so frequently combined in a single individual, and to
explain how the mysteries of religion were so generally connected with
those of medicine.

Professor Tylor has explained how death and all forms of disease
were attributed to magic, the essence of which is the belief in the
influence of the spirits of dead men. This belief is termed Animism,
and Mr. Tylor says: “Animism characterizes tribes very low in the scale
of humanity, and thence ascends, deeply modified in its transmission,
but from first to last preserving an unbroken continuity, into the
midst of high culture. Animism is the groundwork of the philosophy
of religion, from that of the savages up to that of civilized men;
but although it may at first seem to afford but a meagre and bare
definition of a minimum of religion, it will be found practically
sufficient; for where the roots are, the branches will generally
be produced. The theory of animism divides into two great dogmas,
forming parts of one consistent doctrine: first, concerning souls of
individual creatures, capable of continued existence after death;
second, concerning other spirits, upward to the rank of powerful
deities. Spiritual beings are held to affect or control the events of
the material world, and man’s life here and hereafter; and it being
considered that they hold intercourse with men and receive pleasure or
displeasure from human actions, the belief in their existence leads
naturally, sooner or later, to active reverence and propitiation.”
There is no doubt that the belief in the soul and in the existence of
the spirits of the departed in another world arose from dreams. When
the savage in his sleep held converse, as it seemed to him, with the
actual forms of his departed relatives and friends, the most natural
thing imaginable would be the belief that these persons actually
existed in a spiritual shape in some other world than the material
one in which he existed. Those who dreamed most frequently and most
vividly, and were able to describe their visions most clearly, would
naturally strive to interpret their meaning, and would become, to
their grosser and less poetical brethren, more important personages,
and be considered as in closer converse with the spiritual world than
themselves. Thus, in process of time, the seer, the prophet, and the
magician would be evolved.

How did primitive man come by his ideas? When he saw the effects of a
power, he could only make guesses at the cause; he could only speak
of it by some such terms as he would use concerning a human agent. He
saw the effects of fire, and personified the cause. With the Hindus
Agni was the giver of light and warmth, and so of the life of plants,
of animals, and of men; and so with thunder, lightning, and storm,
primitive man looked upon these phenomena as the conflicts of beings
higher and more powerful than himself. Thus it was that the ancient
people of India formed their conceptions of the storm-gods, the Maruts,
_i.e._ the Smashers. Amongst the Esthonians, as Max Müller tells
us,[15] prayers were addressed to thunder and rain as late as the
seventeenth century. “Dear Thunder, push elsewhere all the thick black
clouds. Holy Thunder, guard our seed-field.” (This same thunder-god,
_Perkuna_, says Max Müller, was the god _Parganya_, who was invoked
in India a thousand years before Alexander’s expedition.) We say _it_
rains, _it_ thunders. Primitive folk said the rain-god poured out his
buckets, the thunder-god was angry.

What did primitive man think when he observed the germination of seeds;
the chick coming out of the egg; the butterfly bursting from the
chrysalis; the shadow which everywhere accompanies the man; the shadows
of the tree; the leaves which vibrate in the breeze; when he heard
the roaring of the wind; the moaning of the storm, and the strange,
mysterious echo which, plainly as he heard it, ceased as he approached
the mountain-side which he conceived to be its home? He could but
believe that all nature was living, like himself; and that, as he could
not understand what he saw in the seed, the egg, the chrysalis, or the
shadow, so all nature was full of mystery, of a life that he in vain
would try to comprehend. Many savages regard their own shadows as one
of their two souls,—a soul which is always watching their actions, and
ready to bear witness against them. How should it be otherwise with
them? The shadow is a reality to the savage, and so is the echo. The
ship which visits his shores, the watch and the compass, which he sees
for the first time, are alive; they move, they must be living!

Mr. Tylor, in his chapter on Animism, in his _Primitive Culture_, says
(vol. ii. pp. 124, 125):—

“As in normal conditions the man’s soul, inhabiting his body, is held
to give it life, to think, speak, and act through it, so an adaptation
of the self-same principle explains abnormal conditions of body or
mind, by considering the new symptoms as due to the operation of a
second soul-like being, a strange spirit. The possessed man, tossed and
shaken in fever, pained and wrenched as though some live creature were
tearing or twisting him within, pining as though it were devouring his
vitals day by day, rationally finds a personal spiritual cause for his
sufferings. In hideous dreams he may even sometimes see the very ghost
or nightmare-fiend that plagues him. Especially when the mysterious,
unseen power throws him helpless to the ground, jerks and writhes him
in convulsions, makes him leap upon the bystanders with a giant’s
strength and a wild beast’s ferocity, impels him, with distorted face
and frantic gesture, and voice not his own, nor seemingly even human,
to pour forth wild incoherent raving, or with thought and eloquence
beyond his sober faculties, to command, to counsel, to foretell—such a
one seems to those who watch him, and even to himself, to have become
the mere instrument of a spirit which has seized him or entered into
him—a possessing demon in whose personality the patient believes so
implicitly that he often imagines a personal name for it, which it
can declare when it speaks in its own voice and character through his
organs of speech; at last, quitting the medium’s spent and jaded body,
the intruding spirit departs as it came. This is the savage theory
of demoniacal possession and obsession, which has been for ages, and
still remains, the dominant theory of disease and inspiration among
the lower races. It is obviously based on an animistic interpretation,
most genuine and rational in its proper place in man’s intellectual
history, of the natural symptoms of the cases. The general doctrine
of disease-spirits and oracle-spirits appears to have its earliest,
broadest, and most consistent position within the limits of savagery.
When we have gained a clear idea of it in this its original home, we
shall be able to trace it along from grade to grade of civilization,
breaking away piecemeal under the influence of new medical theories,
yet sometimes expanding in revival, and, at least, in lingering
survival holding its place into the midst of our modern life. The
possession-theory is not merely known to us by the statements of those
who describe diseases in accordance with it. Disease being accounted
for by attacks of spirits, it naturally follows that to get rid of
these spirits is the proper means of cure. Thus the practices of the
exorcist appear side by side with the doctrine of possession, from its
first appearance in savagery to its survival in modern civilization;
and nothing could display more vividly the conception of a disease or
a mental affliction as caused by a personal spiritual being than the
proceedings of the exorcist who talks to it, coaxes or threatens it,
makes offerings to it, entices or drives it out of the patient’s body,
and induces it to take up its abode in some other.”




CHAPTER III.

SAVAGE THEORIES OF DISEASE.

Demoniacal.—Witchcraft.—Offended Dead Persons.


We find amongst savages three chief theories of disease; that it is
caused by—

I. The anger of an offended demon.

II. Witchcraft, or

III. Offended dead persons.


I. ANGER OF OFFENDED DEMONS.

Disease and death are set down to the influences of spirits in the
Australian-Tasmanian district, where demons are held to have the
power of creeping into men’s bodies, to eat up their livers, and
sometimes to work the wicked will of a sorcerer by inflicting blows
with a club on the back of the victim’s neck.[16] The Mantira, a low
race of the Malay Peninsula, believe in the theory of disease-spirits
in its extreme form; their spirits cause all sorts of ailments. The
“Hantu Kalumbahan” causes small-pox; the “Hantu Kamang” brings on
inflammation and swelling of the hands and feet; the blood which flows
from wounds is due to the “Hantu-pari,” which fastens on the wound
and sucks. So many diseases, so many Hantus. If a new malady were to
appear amongst the tribes, a new Hantu would be named as its cause.[17]
When small-pox breaks out amongst these people, they place thorns and
brush in the paths to keep the demons away. The Khonds of Orissa try
to defend themselves against the goddess of small-pox, Jugah Pensu,
in the same way. Among the Dayaks of Borneo, to have been ill is to
have been smitten by a spirit; invisible spirits inflict invisible
wounds with invisible spears, or they enter bodies and make them mad.
Disease-spirits in the Indian Archipelago are conciliated by presents
and dances. In Polynesia, every sickness is set down to deities which
have been offended, or which have been urged to afflict the sufferer by
their enemies.[18] In New Zealand disease is supposed to be due to a
baby, or undeveloped spirit, which is gnawing the patient’s body. Those
who endeavour to charm it away persuade it to get upon a flax-stalk and
go home. Each part of the body is the particular region of the spirit
whose office it is to afflict it.[19]

The Prairie Indians treat all diseases in the same way, as they must
all have been caused by one evil spirit.[20]

Among the Betschvaria disease may be averted if a painted stone or
a crossbar smeared with medicine be set up near the entrance of the
residence or approach to a town.[21]

Amongst the Bodo and Dhimal peoples, when the exorcist is called to
a sick man he sets thirteen loaves round him, to represent the gods,
one of whom he must have offended; then he prays to the deity, holding
a pendulum by a string. The offended god is supposed to cause the
pendulum to swing towards his loaf.[22]

The New Zealanders had a separate demon for each part of the body
to cause disease. Tonga caused headache and sickness; Moko-Tiki was
responsible for chest pains, and so on.[23]

The Karens of Burmah and the Zulus both say, “The rainbow is disease.
If it rests on a man, something will happen to him.”[24] “The rainbow
has come to drink wells.” They say, “Look out; some one or other will
come violently by an evil death.”

The Tasmanians lay their sick round a corpse on the funeral pile, that
the dead may come in the night and take out the devils that cause the
diseases.[25]

The Zulus believe that spirits, when angry, seize a living man’s body
and inflict disease and death, and when kindly disposed give health and
cattle. In Madagascar, Mr. Tylor tells us, the spirits of the Vazimbas,
the aborigines of the island, inflict diseases, and the Malagasy
accounts for all sorts of mysterious complaints by the supposition
that he has given offence to some Vazimba. The Gold Coast negroes
believe that ghosts plague the living and cause sickness. The Dayaks
of Borneo think that the souls of men enter the trunks of trees, and
the Hindus hold that plants are sometimes the homes of the spirits of
the departed. The Santals of Bengal believe that the spirits of the
good enter into fruit-bearing trees.[26] It is but another step to the
belief that beneficent medicinal plants are tenanted by good spirits,
and poisonous plants by evil spirits. The Malays have a special demon
for each kind of disease; one for small-pox, another for swellings, and
so on.[27]

The Dayaks of Borneo acknowledge a supreme God, although, as we have
said, they attribute all kinds of diseases and calamities to the
malignity of evil spirits. Their system of medicine consists in the
application of appropriate charms or the offering of conciliatory
sacrifices.[28] Yet they are an intelligent and highly capable race,
and their steel instruments far surpass European wares in strength and
fineness of edge.[29]

The Javanese, nominally Mahometans, are really believers in the
primitive animism of their ancestry. They worship numberless spirits;
all their villages have patron saints, to whom is attributed all
that happens to the inhabitants, good or bad. Mentik causes the rice
disease; Sawan produces convulsions in children; Dengen causes gout and
rheumatism.[30]

The religion of Siam is a corrupted Buddhism; spirits and demons (nats
or phees) are worshipped and propitiated. Some of these malignant
beings cause children to sicken and die. Talismans are worked into the
ornamentation of the houses to avert their evil influence.[31]

The Rev. J. L. Wilson[32] says: “Demoniacal possessions are common,
and the feats performed by those who are supposed to be under such
influence are certainly not unlike those described in the New
Testament. Frantic gestures, convulsions, foaming at the mouth, feats
of supernatural strength, furious ravings, bodily lacerations, grinding
of teeth, and other things of a similar character, may be witnessed in
most of the cases.”

In Finnish mythology, which introduces us to ideas of extreme
antiquity, we find the disease-demon theory in all its force.

The _Tietajat_, “the learned,” and the _Noijat_, or sorcerers, claimed
the power to cure diseases by expelling the demons which caused them,
by incantations assisted by drugs; these magicians were the only
physicians of the nation. The _Tietajat_ and the _Noijat_, however,
were not magicians of the same class: the former practised “white
magic,” or “sacred science”; the latter practised “black magic,” or
sorcery. Evil spirits, poisons, and malice were the chief aids to
practice in the latter; while _Tietajat_, by means of learning and the
assistance of benevolent supernatural beings, devote themselves to the
welfare of the people. The three highest deities of Finnish mythology,
Ukko, Wäinämöinen, and Ilmarinen, corresponded to three superior gods
of the Accadian magic collection, Ana, Hea, and Mut-ge. Wäinämöinen was
the great spirit of life, the master of favourable spells, conqueror
of evil, and sovereign possessor of science. The sweat which dropped
from his body was a balm for all diseases. It was he alone who could
conquer all the demons. Every disease was itself a demon. The invasion
of the disorder was an actual possession. Finnish magic was chiefly
medical, being used to cure diseases and wounds.[33] The Finns believed
diseases to be the daughters of Louhiatar, the demon of diseases.
Pleurisy, gout, colic, consumption, leprosy, and the plague were all
distinct personages. By the help of conjurations, these might be buried
or cooked in a brazen vessel. When the priest made his diagnosis he had
to be in a state of divine ecstasy, and then by incantation, assisted
by drugs, he proceeded to exorcise the demon. The Finnish incantations
belonged to the same family as those of the Accadians. Professor
Lenormant translates from the great Epopee of the _Kalevala_ one of the
incantations:—

“O malady, disappear into the heavens; pain, rise up to the clouds;
inflamed vapour, fly into the air, in order that the wind may take thee
away, that the tempest may chase thee to distant regions, where neither
sun nor moon give their light, where the warm wind does not inflame the
flesh.

“O pain, mount upon the winged steed of stone, and fly to the mountains
covered with iron. For he is too robust to be devoured by disease, to
be consumed by pains.

“Go, O diseases, to where the virgin of pains has her hearth, where the
daughter of Wäinämöinen cooks pains,—go to the hill of pains.

“These are the white dogs, who formerly hurled torments, who groaned in
their sufferings.”

Another incantation against the plague was discovered by Ganander, and
is given by Lenormant:—

“O scourge, depart; plague, take thy flight, far from the bare flesh.

“I will give thee a horse, with which to escape, whose shoes shall not
slide on ice;” and so on.

The Jewish ceremony expelled the scapegoat to the desert; the Accadian
banished the disease-demons to the desert of sand; the Finnish magician
sent his disease-demons to Lapland.

The goddess Suonetar was the healer and renewer of flesh:—

“She is beautiful, the goddess of veins, Suonetar, the beneficent
goddess! She knits the veins wonderfully with her beautiful spindle,
her metal distaff, her iron wheel.

“Come to me, I invoke thy help; come to me, I call thee. Bring in thy
bosom a bundle of flesh, a ball of veins to tie the extremity of the
veins.”[34]

“All diseases are attributed by the Thibetans to the four elements, who
are propitiated accordingly in cases of severe illness. The winds are
invoked in cases of affections of the breathing; fire in fevers and
inflammations; water in dropsy, and diseases whereby the fluids are
affected; and the god of earth when solid organs are diseased, as in
liver complaints, rheumatism, etc. Propitiatory offerings are made to
the deities of these elements, but never sacrifices.”[35]

Hooker tells of a case of apoplexy which was treated by a Lama, who
perched a saddle on a stone, and burning incense before it, scattered
rice to the winds, invoking the various mountain peaks in the
neighbourhood.

In Hottentot mythology Gaunab is a malevolent ghost, who kills people
who die what we call a “natural” death. Unburied men change into this
sort of vampire.[36]

The demoniacal theory of at least one class of disease is found in the
Bible, although the New Testament in one passage distinguishes between
lunatics and demoniacs. In Matthew iv. 24 we read that they brought
to Jesus “those which were possessed with devils, and those which
were lunatick.” Epilepsy is evidently the disease described in Mark
ix. 17-26, though the symptoms are attributed to possession by a dumb
spirit.


II. WITCHCRAFT AS A CAUSE OF DISEASE.

Sorcerers and magicians not only use evil words and cast evil glances
at the persons whom they wish to afflict, but they endeavour to obtain
possession of some article which has belonged to the individual, or
something connected more closely with his personality, as parings of
the nails or a few of his hairs, and through these he professes to
be able to operate more effectually on the object of his malice. It
is to this use of portions of the body that ignorant persons, even
at the present day, insist that nail-parings, hair-cuttings, and the
like, shall be at once destroyed by fire. Such superstitions are found
at work all over the world. Mr. Black tells us[37] that the servants
of the chiefs of the South Sea Islanders carefully collect and bury
their masters’ spittle in places where sorcerers are not likely to
find it. He says also it is believed in the West of Scotland that if a
bird used any of the hair of a person’s head in building his nest, the
individual would be subject to headaches and become bald. Of course the
bird is held to be the embodiment of an evil spirit or witch. Images of
persons to be bewitched are sometimes made in wood or wax, in which has
been inserted some of the hair of the victim of the enchantment; the
image is then buried, and before long some malady attacks the part of
the bewitched person corresponding to that in which the hair has been
placed in his effigy. Disease-making is a profession in the island of
Tanna in the New Hebrides; the sorcerers collect the skins and shells
of the fruits eaten by any one who is to be punished, they are then
slowly burned, and the victims sicken. Disease-demons are driven away
from patients in Alaska by the beating of drums. The size of the drum
and the force of the beating are directly proportioned to the gravity
of the disease. A headache can be dispelled by the gentle tapping of
a toy drum; concussion of the brain would require that the big drum
should be thumped till it broke; if that failed to expel the evil
spirit, there would be nothing left but to strangle the patient.

The wild natives of Australia are exceedingly superstitious. Sorcery
enters into every relation of life, and their great fear is lest they
should be injured by the mysterious influence called _boyl-ya_. The
sorcerers have power to enter the bodies of men and slowly consume
them; the victim feels the pain as the _boyl-ya_ enters him, and it
does not leave him till it is extracted by another sorcerer. While
he is sleeping, he may be attacked and bewitched by having pointed
at him a leg-bone of a kangaroo, or the sorcerer may steal away his
kidney-fat, where the savage believes that his power resides, or he
may secretly slay his victim by a blow on the back of his neck. The
magician may dispose of his victim by procuring a lock of his hair and
roasting it with fat; as it is consumed, so does his victim pine away
and die.

_Wingo_ is a superstition which some Australian tribes have, that with
a rope of fibre they can partially choke a man, by putting it round
his neck at night while he is asleep, without waking him; his enemy
then removes his caul-fat from under his short rib, leaving no mark or
wound. When the victim awakes he feels no pain or weakness, but sooner
or later he feels something break in his inside like a string. He then
goes home and dies at once.[38]

Dr. Watson thus describes the typical medicine-men:—

“The Tla-guill-augh, or man of supernatural gifts, is supposed to
be capable of throwing his good or bad medicine, without regard
to distance, on whom he will, and to kill or cure by magic at his
pleasure. These medicine-men are generally beyond the meridian of life;
grave, sedate, and shy, with a certain air of cunning, but possessing
some skill in the use of herbs and roots, and in the management of
injuries and external diseases. The people at large stand in great awe
of them, and consult them on every affair of importance.”[39]

Dr. O. L. Möller, Medical Director-General of the Danish army,
describes a certain wise woman near Lögstör, who used in her
prescriptions for the sick people who consulted her a charm of willow
twigs tied together amongst other mystic things, and whose therapeutics
were of a bloodthirsty character, as she would advise her patients to
strike the first person they met after returning home, until they drew
blood, for that person would be the cause of the disease.[40]

The fact that ghosts and demons are everywhere believed to cause
diseases, and that sorcery is practised more or less by most of the
races of man in connection with the causation or cure of disease, has
been used as a factor in the argument for the origin of primitive
man from a single pair in accordance with the orthodox belief. Dr.
Pickering, the ethnologist, says: “Superstitions also appear to be
subject to the same laws of progression with communicated knowledge,
and the belief in ghosts, evil spirits, and sorcery, current among the
ruder East Indian tribes, in Madagascar, and in a great part of Africa,
seems to indicate that such ideas may have elsewhere preceded a regular
form of mythology.”[41]

There has long been practised in the West Indies a species of
witchcraft called _Obeah_ or _Obi_, supposed to have been introduced
from Africa, and which is in reality an ingenious system of poisoning.
Mr. Bowrey, Government chemist in Jamaica, connects Obeah-poisoning
with a plant which grows abundantly in Jamaica and other West Indian
islands, called the “savannah flower,” or “yellow-flowered nightshade”
(_Urechites suberecta_).[42]

Mr. Bowrey concludes that there is some truth in the stories told
of the poisoning by Obeah-men, and that minute doses, frequently
administered, might cause death without suspicion being aroused.
The _British Medical Journal_, June 18th, 1892, has the following
interesting notes on Obeah (p. 1296):—

“It is difficult to obtain detailed information regarding Obeah
practices. They rest largely on the credence given to superstitious
practices and vulgar quackery by the uneducated in every country, but
there seems little doubt that among them secret poisoning is included.
Benjamin Moseley (_Medical Tracts_, London, 1800) states that Obi had
its origin, like many customs among the Africans, from the ancient
Egyptians, _Ob_ meaning a demon or magic. Villiers-Stuart (_Jamaica
Revisited_, 1891) says that Obeah in the West African dialects
signifies serpent, and that the Obeah-men in Jamaica carry (but in
greatest secrecy, for fear of the penal laws) a stick on which is
carved a serpent, the emblem being a relic of the serpent worship once
universal among mankind, and also that they sacrifice cocks at their
religious rites. Moseley gives the following account: ‘Obi, for the
purposes of bewitching people or consuming them by lingering illness,
is made of grave-dirt, hair, teeth of sharks and other animals, blood,
feathers,’ and so on. Mixtures of these are placed in various ways
near the person to be bewitched. ‘The victims to this nefarious art
in the West Indies among the negroes are numerous. No humanity of the
master nor skill in medicine can relieve the poor negro labouring
under the influence of Obi. He will surely die, and of a disease that
answers no description in nosology. This, when I first went to the
colonies, perplexed me. Laws have been made in the West Indies to
punish the Obian practice with death, but they have been impotent and
nugatory. Laws constructed in the West Indies can never suppress the
effect of ideas, the origin of which is in the centre of Africa.’ ‘A
negro Obi-man will administer a baleful dose from poisonous herbs, and
calculate its mortal effects to an hour, day, week, month, or year.’
The missionaries Waddell (_Twenty-nine Years in the West Indies and
Central Africa_, 1863) and Blyth (_Reminiscences of Missionary Life_,
1851) confirm this account. They are all agreed that similar practices
prevail in West and Central Africa, and that Jamaican Obeah-men use
poisons. Mr. Bowrey informs me that he has examined many Obeah charms,
and confirms Moseley’s account of them. He thinks, however, that among
the negroes the knowledge of poisons has been rapidly dying out,
‘doctor’s medicine’ and the much-advertised patent medicines having
largely replaced the drugs of the native practitioners. The belief in
Obeah is still, however, almost universal among the black population.
According to Sir Spencer St. John (_Hayti, or the Black Republic_,
second edition, London, 1889) secret poisoning is a lucrative
occupation in the neighbouring island of Hayti, certain of the people
having an intimate knowledge of indigenous poisonous plants and being
expert poisoners.”


III. OFFENCE TO THE DEAD AS A CAUSE OF DISEASE.

How comes it that all the races of man of which we have any accurate
information have some belief or other in spirits good or bad, and of
some other life than the actual one which they live in their waking
hours? The theologian answers it in his own way, the anthropologist
in his, and perhaps a simpler one. With the religious aspect of the
question we are not here concerned, we have merely to consider the
scientific points involved. When the most ignorant savage of the
lowest type falls asleep, he is as sure to dream as his more favoured
civilized brother. To his companions he appears as though he were
dead, he is motionless and apparently unconscious. He awakes and is
himself again. What has his spirit or thinking part been doing while
his body slept? The man has seen various things and places, has even
conversed with friend or foe in his slumbers, has engaged in fights,
has taken a journey, has had adventures, and yet his body has not
stirred. Naturally enough the explanation most satisfactory is, that
his soul has temporarily left his body, and has met other souls in a
similar condition. He has seen and conversed with his dead friends
or relatives, has been comforted by their presence or alarmed at the
visitation. Here, then, we have the anthropologist’s “theory of souls
where life, mind, breath, shadow, reflexion, dream, vision, come
together and account for one another in some such vague, confused way
as satisfies the untaught reasoner.”[43]

But the savage goes further than this: he has seen his horse, his dog,
his canoe, and his spear in his dream, they too must have souls; and
thus he invests with a spiritual essence every material object by which
he is surrounded. And so we find funeral sacrifices and ceremonies all
over the world which testify to this universal belief of primitive man.
The ornaments and weapons which are found with the bones of chiefs,
the warrior’s horses slain at his burial place, the food and drink and
piece of money left with the dead, are intelligible on this theory, and
on no other. The savage’s idea of a demon or evil spirit is usually
that of a soul of a malevolent dead man. The man was his enemy during
life, he remains his enemy after death; or he owed some acknowledgment
and reward to a spirit who had helped him, he has neglected to pay
his debt, and he has offended the spirit in consequence. In cases
of fainting, delirium from fever, hysteria, epilepsy, or insanity,
the savage sees the partial absence of the patient’s soul from his
body, or the work of a tormenting demon. Demoniacal possession and
the ceremonies of exorcism are theories readily explainable by facts
with which the anthropologist is familiar. “The sick Australian will
believe that the angry ghost of a dead man has got into him, and is
gnawing his liver; in a Patagonian skin hut the wizards may be seen
dancing, shouting, and drumming, to drive out the evil demon from a man
down with fever.”[44]

When Prof. Bartram, the anthropologist, was in Burma, his servant was
seized with an apopleptic fit. The man’s wife, of course, attributed
the misfortune to an angry demon, so she set out for him little heaps
of rice, and was heard praying, “Oh, ride him not! Ah, let him go! Grip
him not so hard! Thou shalt have rice! Ah, how good that tastes!”

The exorcist may so delude himself that he may believe that he has
power to make the demon converse with him. There may be a falsetto
voice like that of the mediums of modern civilization issuing from
the patient’s mouth, and the exorcist’s questions and commands may be
answered, and the evil spirit may consent to leave the sufferer in
peace. In nervous or mental disorders, in cases of defective power
of assimilating food, such a process may exert a soothing and highly
beneficial influence on the patient who is actively co-operating by his
faith in his own cure, and so the error both as to the cause of the
malady and its treatment is perpetuated.

Primitive folk think that life is indestructible; what is called death
is but a change of condition to them; even mites and mosquitos are
immortal.[45]

The Tasmanian, when he suffers from a gnawing disease, believes that he
has unwittingly pronounced the name of a dead man, who, thus summoned,
has crept into his body, and is consuming his liver. The sick Zulu
believes that some dead ancestor he sees in a dream has caused his
ailment, wanting to be propitiated with the sacrifice of an ox. The
Samoan thinks that the ancestral souls can get into the heads and
stomachs of living men, and cause their illness and death. These are
examples of human ghosts having become demons.[46]

In the Samoan group people thought that if a man died bearing ill-will
towards any one, he would be likely to return to trouble him, and
cause sickness and death, taking up his abode in the sufferer’s head,
chest, or stomach. If he died suddenly, they said he had been eaten
by the spirit that took him. In the Georgian and Society Islands evil
demons cause convulsions and hysterics, or twist the bowels till the
sufferers die writhing in agony. Madmen are thought to be entered by a
god, so they are treated with great respect; idiots are considered to
be divinely inspired.[47] Many other races believe in the inspiration
of mentally feeble or insane persons. Amongst the Dacotas spirits of
animals, trees, stones, or deceased persons are believed to enter the
patient and cause his disease. The medicine-man recites charms over
him, and making a symbolic representation of the intruding spirit in
bark, shoots it ceremonially; he sucks over the seat of the pain to
draw the spirit out, and fires guns at it as it escapes.

This is just what happened in the West Indies in the time of Columbus.
Friar Roman Paul tells of a native sorcerer who pretended to pull the
disease from the legs of his patients, blowing it away, and telling it
to begone to the mountain or the sea. He would then pretend to extract
by sucking some stone or bit of flesh, which he declared had been put
into the patient to cause the disease by a deity in punishment for
some religious neglect.[48] The Patagonians believed that sickness was
caused by spirits entering the patient’s body; they considered that an
evil demon held possession of the sick man’s body, and their doctors
always carried a drum which they struck at the bedside to frighten
away the demons which caused the disorder.[49] The Zulus and Basutos
in Africa teach that ghosts of dead persons are the causes of all
diseases. Congo tribes believe also that the souls of the dead cause
disease and death amongst men.

The art of medicine in these lands therefore is, for the most part,
merely an affair of propitiating some offended and disease-causing
spirit. In several parts of Africa mentally deranged persons are
worshipped. Madness and idiocy are explained by the phrase, “he has
fiends.” The Bodo and Dhimal people of North-east India ascribe all
diseases to a deity who torments the patient, and who must be appeased
by the sacrifice of a hog. With these people naturally the doctor is
a sort of priest. As Mr. Tylor says, “Where the world-wide doctrine
of disease-demons has held sway, men’s minds, full of spells and
ceremonies, have scarce had room for thought of drugs and regimen.”[50]

A forest tribe of the Malay Peninsula, called the Original People, are
said to have no religion, no idea of any Supreme Being, and no priests;
yet their Puyung, who is a sort of general adviser to the tribe,
instructs them in sorcery and the doctrine of ghosts and evil spirits.
In sickness they use the roots and leaves of trees as medicines.
Amongst the Tarawan group of the Coral Islands, Pickering says:
“Divination or sorcery was also known, and the natives paid worship
to the manes or spirits of their departed ancestors.”[51] Probably on
careful investigation we should find that in these cases the doctrine
of ghosts and the worship of spirits has some connection with the
causation of disease.

The Malagasy profess a religion which is chiefly fetishism. They
believe in the life of the spirit, which they call “the essential part
of me,” apart from the body; and they believe that this spirit exists
when the body dies. Such “ghosts” they consider can do harm in various
ways, especially by causing diseases; consequently they endeavour, as
the chief means of cure, to appease the offended ghost. Witchcraft and
belief in charms naturally flourish amongst these people.[52]

Mr. A. W. Howitt says that the Kŭrnai of Gippsland, Australia, believe
that a man’s spirit (_Yambo_) can leave the body during sleep, and hold
converse with other disembodied spirits. Another tribe, the Woi-worŭng,
call this spirit Mūrŭp, and they suppose it leaves the body in a
similar manner, the exact moment of its departure being indicated by
the “snoring” of the sleeper. As a theory of the soul, Mr. Howitt says:
“It may be said of the aborigines I am now concerned with, and probably
of all others, that their dreams are to them as much realities in one
sense, as are the actual events of their waking life. It may be said
that in this respect they fail to distinguish between the subjective
and objective impressions of the brain, and regard both as real
events.”[53]

They believe that these ghosts live upon plants, that they can
revisit their old haunts at will, and communicate with the wizards or
medicine-men on being summoned by them. A celebrated wizard amongst
the Woi-worŭng caught the spirit of a dying man, and brought it back
under his ’possum rug, and restored it to the still breathing body just
in time to save his life. The ghosts can kill game with spiritually
poisoned spears. Even the tomahawk has a spirit, and this belief
explains many burial customs. One of the Woi-worŭng people told Mr.
Howitt that they buried the weapon with the dead man, “so that he might
have it handy.” Other tribes bury with the corpse the amulets and
charms used by the deceased during life, in case they may be required
in the spirit-world. The Woi-worŭng believe that their wizards could
send their deadly magical yark, or rock crystal, against a person they
desired to kill, in the form of a small whirlwind. They believe that
their wizards “go up” at night to the sky, and obtain such information
as they require in their profession. They can also bring away the
magical apparatus by which some one of another tribe might be injuring
the health of a member of his own tribe. It is highly probable that
in these Australian beliefs we have the counterparts of those which
were everywhere held by primitive man. Good spirits are very little
worshipped by savages; they are already well disposed, and need no
invocation; it is the bad ones who must be propitiated by an infinite
variety of rites and sacrifices. “Thus,” as Professor Keane says, “has
demonology everywhere preceded theology.”[54]

Mr. Edward Palmer, in _Notes on Some Australian Tribes_, says that the
Gulf tribes believe in spirits which live inside the bark of trees,
and which come out at night to hold intercourse with the doctors, or
“mediums.” These spirits work evil at times. The Kombinegherry tribe
are much afraid of an evil-working spirit called _Tharragarry_, but
they are protected by a good spirit, _Coomboorah_. The Mycoolon people
believe in an invisible spear which enters the body, leaving no outward
sign of its entry. The victim does not even know that he is hurt; he
goes on hunting, and returns home as usual; in the night he becomes
ill, delirious, or mad, and dies in the morning. _Thimmool_ is a
pointed leg-bone of a man, which, being held over a blackfellow when
asleep, causes sickness or death. The _Marro_ is the pinion-bone of
a hawk, in which hair of an enemy has been fixed with wax. To work a
charm on him a fire circle is made round it. With this charm they can
make their enemy sick, or, by prolonging their magic, kill him. When
they think they have done harm enough, they place the Marro in water,
which removes the charm.[55]

Mr. H. H. Johnstone says that the tribes on the Lower Congo bury with
any one of consequence bales of cloth, plates, beads, knives, and other
things required to set the deceased up in the spirit-life on which he
has entered. The plates are broken, the beads are crushed, and the
knives bent, so as to kill them, that they too may “die,” and go to the
spirit-land with their owner.[56]

This is a valuable confirmation of the doctrine of animism.

As Mr. Herbert Spencer says:[57] “It is absurd to suppose that
uncivilized man possesses at the outset the idea of ‘natural
explanation.’” At a great price has civilized man purchased the power
of giving a natural explanation to the phenomena by which he is
surrounded. As societies grow, as the arts flourish, as painfully,
little by little, his experiences accumulate, so does man learn to
correct his earlier impressions, and to construct the foundations of
science. It is the natural, or it would not be the universal, process
for primitive man to explain phenomena by the simplest methods, and
these always lead him to his superstitions. It is the only process open
to him. The activity which he sees all around him is controlled by
the spirits of the dead, and by spirits more or less like those which
animate his fellow-men.

Clement of Alexandria says that all superstition arises from the
inveterate habit of mankind to make gods like themselves. The deities
have like passions with their worshippers, “and some say that plagues,
and hailstorms, and tempests, and the like, are wont to take place,
not alone in consequence of material disturbance, but also through the
anger of demons and bad angels. These can only be appeased by sacrifice
and incantations. Yet some of them are easily satisfied, for when
animals failed, it sufficed for the magi at Cleone to bleed their own
fingers.”[58]

“The prophetess Diotima, by the Athenians offering sacrifice previous
to the pestilence, effected a delay of the plague for ten years.”[59]




CHAPTER IV.

MAGIC AND SORCERY IN THE TREATMENT OF DISEASE.

 These originated partly in the Desire to cover
 Ignorance.—Medicine-men.—Sucking out Diseases.—Origin of
 Exorcism.—Ingenuity of the Priests.—Blowing Disease away.—Beelzebub
 cast out by Beelzebub.—Menders of Souls.—”Bringing up the
 Devil.“—Diseases and Medicines.—Fever Puppets.—Amulets.—Totemism and
 Medicine.


Dr. Robertson tells us that the ignorant pretenders to medical skill
amongst the North American Indians were compelled to cover their
ignorance concerning the structure of the human body, and the causes of
its diseases, by imputing the origin of the maladies which they failed
to cure to supernatural influences of a baleful sort. They therefore
“prescribed or performed a variety of mysterious rites, which they
gave out to be of such efficacy as to remove the most dangerous and
inveterate malice. The credulity and love of the marvellous natural
to uninformed men favoured the deception, and prepared them to be the
dupes of those impostors. Among savages, their first physicians are a
kind of conjurers, or wizards, who boast that they know what is past,
and can foretell what is to come. Thus, superstition, in its earliest
form, flowed from the solicitude of man to be delivered from present
distress, not from his dread of evils awaiting him in a future life,
and was originally ingrafted on medicine, not on religion. One of the
first and most intelligent historians of America was struck with this
alliance between the art of divination and that of physic among the
people of Hispaniola. But this was not peculiar to them. The _Alexis_,
the _Piayas_, the _Autmoins_, or whatever was the distinguishing
name of the diviners and charmers in other parts of America, were
all physicians of their respective tribes, in the same manner as the
_Buhitos_ of Hispaniola. As their function led them to apply to the
human mind when enfeebled by sickness, and as they found it, in that
season of dejection, prone to be alarmed with imaginary fears, or
assured with vain hopes, they easily induced it to rely with implicit
confidence on the virtue of their spells and the certainty of their
predictions.”[60]

The aborigines of the Amazon have a kind of priests called _Pagés_,
like the medicine-men of the North American Indians. They attribute all
diseases either to poison or to the charms of some enemy. Of course,
diseases caused by magic can only be cured by magic, so these powerful
priest-physicians cure their patients by strong blowing and breathing
upon them, accompanied by the singing of songs and by incantations.
They are believed to have the power to kill enemies, and to afflict
with various diseases. As they are much believed in, these _pagés_ are
well paid for their services. They are acquainted with the properties
of many poisonous plants. One of their poisons most frequently used is
terrible in its effects, causing the tongue and throat, as well as the
intestines, to putrefy and rot away, leaving the sufferer to linger in
torment for several days.[61]

Amongst many savage tribes their medicine-men pretend to remove
diseases by sucking the affected part of the body. They have previously
placed bits of bone, stones, etc., in their mouths, and they pretend
they have removed them from the patient, and exhibit them as proofs
of their success. The Shaman, or wizard-priest of the religion still
existing amongst the peoples of Northern Asia, who pretends to have
dealings with good and evil spirits, is the successor of the priests
of Accad; thus is the Babylonian religion reduced to the level of the
heathenism of Mongolia.

The aborigines of the Darling River, New South Wales, believe that
sickness is caused by an enemy, who uses certain charms called the
_Yountoo_ and _Molee_. The _Yountoo_ is made from a piece of bone taken
from the leg of a deceased friend. This is wrapped up in a piece of the
dried flesh from the body of another deceased friend. The package is
tied with some hair from the head of a third friend. When this charm
is used against an enemy, it is taken to the camp where he sleeps, and
after certain rites are performed it is pointed at the person to be
injured. The doctor of the tribe attributes disease to this sort of
enchantment, and pretends to suck out of his patient the piece of bone
which he declares has entered his body and caused the mischief. The
_Molee_ is a piece of white quartz, which is pointed at the victim with
somewhat similar ceremonies and consequences. The possessors of these
powerful charms take care to hide them from view. When the doctor, or
_Maykeeka_, sucks out the _Yountoo_—bone chip—from his patient, he must
throw it away. The _Molee_ must be cast into water.

Mr. F. Bonney read a paper on “Some Customs of the Aborigines of the
River Darling,” before the Anthropological Society of Great Britain,
May 8th, 1883, in which the process of curing diseases is described.
He says: “On one occasion, when I was camped in the Purnanga Ranges,
I watched by the light of a camp-fire a doctor at work, sucking the
back of a woman who was suffering from pains in that part. While she
sat on a log a few yards distant from the camp-fire, he moved about
her, making certain passes with boughs which he held, and then sucked
for some time the place where pain was felt; at last he took something
from his mouth, and, holding it towards the firelight, declared it to
be a piece of bone. The old women sitting near loudly expressed their
satisfaction at his success. I asked to be allowed to look at it, and
it was given to me. I carelessly looked at it, and then pretended to
throw it into the fire, but, keeping it between my fingers, I placed
it in my pocket, when I could do so unobserved; and on the following
morning, when I examined it by daylight, it proved to be a small
splinter of wood, and not bone. At the time the patient appeared to
be very much relieved by the treatment.” Another mode of treatment
described by Mr. Bonney is that of sucking poison, supposed to have
been sent into the patient by an enemy, through a string. The patient
complained of sickness in the stomach; the woman doctor placed the
patient on her back on the ground, tied a string round the middle of
her naked body, leaving a loose end about eighteen inches long. The
doctress then began sucking the string, passing the loose end through
her mouth, from time to time spitting blood and saliva into a pot. She
repeated this many times, until the patient professed to be cured.

The people of Timor-laut, near the island of New Guinea, scar
themselves on the arms and shoulders with red-hot stones, in imitation
of immense small-pox marks, in order to ward off that disease.[62]

Among the Kaffirs diseases are all attributed to three causes—either to
being enchanted by an enemy, to the anger of certain beings whose abode
appears to be in the rivers, or to the power of evil spirits.[63]

“Among the Kalmucks,” says Lubbock, “the cures are effected by
exorcising the evil spirit. This is the business of the so-called
‘priests,’ who induce the evil spirit to quit the body of the patient
and enter some other object. If a chief is ill, some other person is
induced to take his name, and then, as is supposed, the evil spirit
passes into his body.”[64]

Pritchard tells us that “the priests of the Negroes are also the
physicians, as were the priests of Apollo and Æsculapius. The
notions which the Negroes entertain of the causes of diseases are
very different. The Watje attribute them to evil spirits whom they
call Dobbo. When these are very numerous, they ask of their sacred
cotton-tree permission to hunt them out. Hereupon a chase is appointed,
and they do not cease following the demons with arms and great cries
until they have chased them beyond their boundaries. This chase of the
spirits of disease is very customary among many nations of Guinea, who
universally believe that many diseases arise from enchantment, and
others by the direction of the Deity.”[65]

It is interesting to note, as showing the ingenuity of the priests,
that during the extremely dangerous rainy season the doctors’ remedies
are of very little use; then the priests say this is because the gods
at this particular season are obliged to appear at the court of the
superior deity. During their absence at court, the priests cannot
obtain access to them; and as without their advice they could not
efficaciously prescribe, such medicines as they offer have little good
effect.

The Antilles Indians in Columbus’s time went through the pretence of
pulling the disease off the patient and blowing it away, telling it to
begone to the sea or the mountains.

That the disease-demon may often be blown away by a plentiful supply of
fresh air is now an article of every hygienist’s creed.

The Badaga folk, mountaineers of the Neilgherries, insure their
children against accidents and sickness by talismans made of the earth
and ashes of funeral pyres. They think the souls of the departed are so
vexed at finding themselves in a novel condition that they are liable
to kill people even without a motive. When an epidemic breaks out,
they lay the blame on the person who died last, who is going about the
country taking vengeance on his kindred.[66]

Monier Williams says they endeavour to induce the demon of pestilence,
of typhoid fever, of the plague of rats or caterpillars, to enter into
the body of a dancer, who acts as a medium and has power to exorcise
the angry spirit. He has power to let loose rot or farcy amongst the
flocks and herds, so the medium has to be conciliated. The Corumba of
these mountain people is a wizard, the sicknesses of men and animals
are all set down to his account. “Gratified by the evil reputation
the Corumba enjoy, they offer to undo what they are supposed to have
done, to remove the spells they are accused of having cast. The wheat
is smutty, the flocks have the scab? Somebody’s head aches, some one’s
stomach is out of order? One of these rogues turns up, offers to eject
the demon; as it happens, the evil spirit is one of his particular
cronies! He will cast out Beelzebub by Beelzebub.”[67]

Amongst the Western Inoits, says Elie Reclus,[68] the magician of the
people is called _Angakok_, signifying the “Great” or “the Ancient,”
and he is guide, instructor, wonder-worker, physician, and priest.
He accumulates in himself all influences; “he is public counsellor,
justice of the peace, arbitrator in public and private affairs, artist
of all kinds, poet, actor, buffoon.” Supposed to be in contact and
close communication with the superior beings of the world of spirits,
and to harbour in his body many demons of various kinds, he is supposed
to be invested with omnipotence, he can chase away the disease-demons,
and put even death itself to flight. The _angakok_ defends his people
from the demons who take the form of cancers, rheumatism, paralysis,
and skin diseases. He exorcises the sick man with stale urine, like the
Bochiman poison-doctors.[69]

The Cambodians exorcise the small-pox demon with the urine of a white
horse.[70]

Thiers (_Des Superstitions_), quoted by Reclus, says that Slavonic
rustics asperse their cattle with herbs of St. John boiled in urine
to keep ill-luck away from them; and that French peasant women used
to wash their hands in their own urine, or in that of their husbands
and children, to prevent evil enchantments doing them harm. Reclus
says: “When a diagnosis puzzles an _angakok_, he has recourse to a
truly ingenious proceeding. He fastens to the invalid’s head a string,
the other end of which is attached to a stick; this he raises, feels,
balances on his hand, and turns in every direction. Various operations
follow, having for their object the forcible removal of the spider
from the luckless wretch whose flesh it devours. He will cleanse and
set to rights as much as he is able—whence his name ‘Mender of Souls.’
A wicked witch, present though invisible, can undo the efforts of the
conjurer, and even communicate to him the disease, rendering him the
victim of his devotion; black magic can display more power than white
magic. Then, seeing the case to be desperate, the honest _angakok_
summons, if possible, one or more brethren, and the physicians of souls
strive in concert to comfort the dying man; with a solemn voice they
extol the felicities of Paradise, chanting softly a farewell canticle,
which they accompany lightly upon the drum.”[71]

The superstitious natives of the Lower Congo have a singular custom,
when anybody dies, of compelling some victim or other to drink a poison
made from the bark of the _Erythrophlœum guineensis_. It usually acts
as a powerful emetic, and is administered in the hope that it may
“bring up” the devil. Their medicine-man is called _nganga_, and he is
taught a language quite different from the ordinary tongue, and this
is kept secret from females. “No one,” says Mr. H. H. Johnston (“On
the Races of the Congo”),[72] “has yet been able to examine into their
sacred tongue.” The use of Latin by civilized doctors is not unlike
this African custom.

The mountaineers of the Neilgherries endeavour to induce the demon they
invoke to enter into the body of the “medium,” a dancer who pretends
to the intoxication of prophecy. If they can persuade the demon of
pestilence or typhoid fever to enter into the medium, it becomes
possible to act upon and influence him.[73]

The people of Tartary make a great puppet when fever is prevalent,
which they call the Demon of Intermittent Fevers, and which when
completed they set up in the tent of the patients.

Mr. Forbes, in his account of the tribes of the island of Timor, says
that the natives believe all diseases to be the result of sorcery, and
they carry a variety of herbs and charms to avert its influence. He
says: “I had as a servant an old man, who one morning complained of
being in a very discomposed and generally uncomfortable state, and of
being afraid he was going to die. He had seen, he said, the spirit of
his mother in the night, she had been present by him and had spoken
with him. He feared, therefore, that he was about to die. He begged
of me some tobacco and rice to offer to her, which I gave him. He
retired a little way to a great stone in the ground, and laying on
it some betel and pinang, with a small quantity of chalk, along with
a little tobacco and rice, he repeated for some eight or ten minutes
an invocation which I did not understand. The rice and the chalk he
left on the stone, which were very shortly after devoured by my fowls;
the tobacco, betel, and pinang he took away again, to be utilised by
himself.”[74]

When the medicine-man of these tribes calls to see a patient, he
looks very closely at him, to endeavour to perceive the sorcerer who
is making him ill. Then he returns to his home and makes up some
medicines, which the happy patient has not however to swallow, but
the drugs having been packed by the doctor into a bundle with a small
stone, are thrown away as far as possible from the sick man; the stone
finds out the sorcerer and returns to the doctor, who gives it to his
patient and tells him it will cure him if he will wear it about his
neck. This affords another illustration of the universal belief of the
value of amulets in medicine.

Medicine amongst certain tribes has a connection with the adoration
of particular objects and animals believed to be related to each
separate stock or blood-kindred of human beings, and which is known in
anthropology as totemism. The Algonquin Indians use the name, Bear,
Wolf, Tortoise, Deer, or Rabbit to designate each of a number of clans
into which the race is divided. The animal is considered as an ancestor
or protector of the tribe.

In considering the institutions of “totemism” and “medicine,” we must
not forget that savage “medicine” has a function somewhat different
from that of medicine in our sense of the word. Some doubt if there be
any real distinction between the totem and the medicine.[75]

Schoolcraft says that among the Sioux a clan consists of individuals
who use the same roots for medicine, and they are initiated into the
clan by a great _medicine-dance_. The Sioux and other tribes make a
bag out of the skin of the medicine (totem?) animal, which acts as a
talisman, and is inherited by the son. Here we have an instance of the
reverence inspired by an inherited medicine. It is a little surprising
that we have so few evidences of the worship of healing herbs and drugs.

Demon-worship is the explanation of the mysteries of Dionysus Zagreus
and the Chthonic and Bacchic orgies. M. Reclus says: “If we knew
nothing otherwise of these orgies, we could obtain a sufficiently
correct idea of them by visiting the Ghâts, the Neilgherries, and the
Vindhyas.”[76]

[Illustration:  THE MEDICINE-DANCE OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.
                                                   [_Face p._ 32.]




CHAPTER V.

PRIMITIVE MEDICINE.

 Bleeding.—Scarification.—Use of Medicinal Herbs amongst the Aborigines
 of Australia, South America, Africa, etc.


The Healing Craft of many of the northern tribes of Australia is thus
described by Mr. Palmer:—

“Among the northern tribes many devices and charms are resorted to
in the cases of pains and sickness. The doctors are men who, it is
supposed, possess great powers of healing, some of which they obtain
from the spirits. They use stones and crystals to put away sickness
from any one, and sometimes they bandage the afflicted part with
string tightly till no part of the skin is visible. One common plan of
alleviating pain is by bleeding, supposing that the pain comes away
with the blood. For this minute cuts are made through the skin with
pieces of broken flint, or the edge of a broken mussel-shell, over
the part affected, and the blood is wiped off with a stick. Sometimes
the doctor ties a string from the sick place, say the chest, and rubs
the end of it across his gums, spitting into a kooliman of water, and
passing the string through also; he then points to the blood in the
water as evidence of his skill in drawing it from the sick person.
Stones are sucked out with the mouth, and exhibited as having been
taken from the body. A good number of plants are used in sickness
as drinks, and for external application. A broken arm is cured with
splints made of bark and wound round tightly. Snake-bite is cured by
scarifying and sucking the wound, and by then using a poultice of
box-bark, bruised and heated.”[77]

Mr. E. Palmer says that “the Australian aborigines possessed a
considerable knowledge of indigenous plants, and their acquaintance
with natural history was very accurate. They could only have obtained
this knowledge by close observation and generations of experience.
With the extermination of the blacks this information has completely
died out, and it can only now be obtained in far-distant places like
North Queensland, where the aborigines have not been killed off by
contact with civilization. They have much experience in the healing
virtues and properties of plants, as also of the kinds best suited
for poisoning fish.”[78] Great skill is exhibited by their mode of
preparing plants by fire and water and other processes, before using
them as food; if partaken of in their natural state, many of them
would be very deleterious, if not actually poisonous. The _Dioscorea
sativa_, or karro plant, has large tubers, which are first roasted,
then broken in water and strained or squeezed through fine bags made
of fibre into long bark troughs, then the product is washed in many
waters, the sediment is well stirred while the water is poured in; by
this means the bitter principle is extracted, and a yellow fecula like
hominy is produced. _Careya australis_ has a root which is used to
poison fish, though its fruit is eaten uncooked by the natives. Manna
is gathered from _Eucalyptus terminalis_. _Cymbidium caniculatum_ is
used for dysentery and other bowel disorders. The nuts of the _Cycas
media_ are very poisonous unless prepared by fire and water, and then
they can be used as food. The seeds of _Entada scandens_ are only fit
for eating after baking and pounding, as is the case with many other
plants cleverly manipulated by the blacks. The leaves of _Ocimum
sanctum_ are infused in water and drunk for sickness. A wash is made
from the bruised bark of the gutta-percha tree, _Excæcaria parviflora_.
The leaves of _Loranthus quandong_, the mistletoe of the _Acacia
hemalophylla_, are infused in water and drunk for fevers, ague, etc.;
it is doubtful whether they have any virtue, but mistletoe was once a
very highly prized medicine in Europe, though now wholly obsolete. The
leaves of _Melaleuca leucadendron_ are used in infusion for headache,
colds, and general sickness. The _melaleuca_ is the cajeput tree, and
cajeput oil is undoubtedly a valuable medicine. Stillé says, “It is
of marked utility in cases of nervous vomiting, nervous dysphagia,
dyspnœa, and hiccup.”[79] Externally it is valuable in nervous headache
and neuralgia.

The natives make great use medicinally of the various species of
eucalyptus. The leaves of _Eucalyptus tetradonta_ are made into a drink
for fevers and sickness with headache, etc. The _Eucalyptus globulus_
recently introduced into civilized medicine comes from Australia.
_Plectranthus congestus_, _Pterocaulon glandulosus_, _Gnaphalium
luteo-album_ (several of this species are used in European medicine in
bronchitis and diarrhœa, and one of them is called “Life Everlasting”),
_Heliotropium ovalifolium_, and _Moschosma polystachium_, are all used
in the medical practice of these despised aborigines, and are probably
quite as valuable as the majority of the herbs recommended in our old
herbals and pharmacopœias.

The aborigines of the north-western provinces of South America have
long been famous for their extensive knowledge of the properties of
medicinal plants, and even now they possess secrets for which we may
envy them.[80]

The arrow-poison used by the Indians of the interior is made from a
plant of the strychnos family. Those of the Pacific coast prepare a
poison from the secretion exuding from the skin of a small frog; this
by a certain process of decomposition they convert into a powerful
blood-poison. It is said that when these tribes were preparing poisons
for use in time of war, it was their ancient practice to test their
efficacy on the old women of the tribe, and not on the lower animals,
exhibiting in this respect a superior knowledge of toxicology than
is shown by those pharmacologists of our own day who test on animals
the drugs they propose administering to man. Mr. R. B. White, in his
notes on these aboriginal tribes, says that the Indians in the State
of Antioquia were in the habit of poisoning the salt springs in the
time of the Spanish invasion; they covered the spring with branches of
a tree called the “Doncel,” which imparted such venomous properties to
the water that after a lapse of three hundred years it still retains
its deadly properties; when animals now get at the water, as many as
three horses have been known to be killed in one night by drinking
it.[81]

The study of the means of capturing fish by poisoning the water—a
practice which is universal amongst savages—must have led to many
observations on the properties of poisonous plants. Some considerable
knowledge of the risks and uses of various leaves and berries must have
been acquired in this way. The people of Timor-laut intoxicate fish
with rice steeped in poisonous climbing plants.[82]

The aborigines of the River Darling, New South Wales, feed their very
sick and weak patients upon blood drawn from the bodies of their male
friends. It is generally taken raw by the invalid, sometimes however it
is slightly cooked by putting hot ashes in it.[83]

The practice is disgusting, but scarcely more so than one which was
prescribed a few years ago by the great physicians of Paris, who
ordered their anæmic patients to drink hot blood from the slaughtered
oxen at the _abattoirs_. Mr. Bonney says that the aborigines referred
to willingly bleed themselves till they are weak and faint to provide
the food they consider necessary for the sick person.

The acacias are very abundant in Australia, in India, and Africa. This
order of plants produces gum arabic and gum Senegal. The Tasmanians use
the gum of _Acacia sophora_ as a food.

The eucalyptus or blue-gum tree grows on the hills of Tasmania and in
Victoria on the mainland of Australia; it was introduced into Europe in
1856, and has been very extensively used as a remedy for intermittent
fever, influenza, and as a powerful disinfectant.

“As in all similar cases,” says Stillé, “the discovery of its virtues
was accidental. It is alleged that more than forty years ago the crew
of a French man-of-war, having lost a number of men with ‘pernicious
fever,’ put into Botany Bay, where the remaining sick were treated with
eucalyptus, and rapidly recovered. It is also said that the virtues of
the tree were well known to the aboriginal inhabitants.”

A good illustration of the ways in which the properties of plants have
been discovered, and of the relation of poisonous to harmless herbs,
may be found in the practice of the American Indians in their use of
the _manioc_, a large shrub producing roots somewhat like parsnips.
They carefully extract the juice, which is a deadly poison, and
then grate the dried roots to a fine powder, which they afterwards
convert into the _cassava_ bread. How was this treatment of the root
discovered? It was simply due to the fact that one species of the
shrub is devoid of any poisonous property, and has only to be washed
and may then be eaten with impunity. No doubt this non-poisonous root
was the first which was used for food; then when the supply ran short
they were driven by necessity to find out the way to use the almost
identical root of the poisonous variety, which when divested of its
juice is even better for food than the harmless root. Probably this
was only discovered after many experiments and fatalities. “Necessity,
the mother of invention,” in this as in most other things, ultimately
directed the natives to the right way of dealing with this article of
diet.

The male fern is a very ancient remedy for tape-worm, and to the
present day physicians have found nothing so successful for removing
this parasite. The plant is indigenous to Canada, Mexico, South
America, India, Africa, and Europe. The negroes of South America have
long used worm-seed (_Chenopodium anthelminticum_) as a vermifuge for
lumbricoid worms. The plant grows wild in the United States, and has
been introduced into the Pharmacopœia as a remedy especially adapted
for the expulsion of the round-worms of children. Kousso (_Brayera
anthelmintica_) has been employed from time immemorial in Abyssinia for
the expulsion of tape-worm. It has been introduced into the British
Pharmacopœia.

Some tribes of the Upper Orinoco, Rio Negro, etc., have been known to
subsist for months on no other food than an edible earth, a kind of
clay containing oxide of iron, and which is of a reddish-brown colour.

M. Cortambert, at a meeting of the Geographical Society in 1862,
described this singular food, and said it seemed to be rather a stay
for the stomach than a nourishment. Some white people in Venezuela have
imitated the earth-eaters, and do not despise balls of fat earth.[84]

Savages require much larger doses of drugs than civilized people. Mr.
Bonney relates[85] that he usually gave the aborigines of New South
Wales half a pint or more of castor oil for a dose. Another man took
three drops of croton oil as an ordinary dose.

Professor Bentley in 1862-63 contributed to the _Pharmaceutical
Journal_ a series of articles on New American Remedies which have been
introduced into medical practice in consequence of their reputation
amongst the Indians. Yellow-root (_Xanthorrhiza apiifolia_) has long
been employed by the various tribes of North American Indians as a
tonic, and may be compared to quassia or calumba root. It is included
in the United States Pharmacopœia. Its active principle seems to be
_berberine_.

The blue Cohosh plant (_Caulophyllum thalictroides_) has for ages been
used by the aborigines of North America as a valuable remedy for female
complaints. A tea of the root is employed amongst the Chippeway Indians
on Lake Superior as an aid to parturition. The earliest colonists
obtained their knowledge of the virtues of the blue cohosh from the
natives, and it has for many years been a favourite diuretic remedy
in the States. Its common names are pappoose-root, squaw-root, and
blueberry-root. Its active principle is called _caulophyllin_.

Twin-leaf (_Jeffersonia diphylla_) is a popular remedy in Ohio
and other North American States in rheumatism. It is called
_rheumatism-root_. In chemical composition it is similar to senega.

Blood-root, or puccoon (_Sanguinaria canadensis_), has been used
for centuries by North American Indians as a medicine. It has been
introduced into the United States Pharmacopœia. It is an alterative,
and is useful in certain forms of dyspepsia, bronchitis, croup, and
asthma. Its physiological action, however, bears no relation to
its medicinal uses (_Stillé and Maisch_). Its active principle is
_sanguinarina_.

_Sarracenia purpurea_, Indian cup, or side-saddle plant, is a native
of North America, and much used by the Indians in dyspepsia, sick
headache, etc.

The valuable bitter stomachic and tonic calumba-root comes to us from
the forests of Eastern Africa, between Ibo and the Zambesi. Its
African name is _kalumb_; it depends for its therapeutic value on
the berberine which it contains, and which is found in several other
plants. The natives of tropical Africa, the North American Indians,
and the semi-barbarian tribes of Hindostan and China have all been
impressed with the medicinal value of berberine. Before quinine was
commonly used in medicine, this valuable drug was estimated most highly
for its very similar properties. There can be no doubt that it was
introduced into medicine by savages.

Jalap comes to us from Mexico. It was named from the city of Xalapa.

Cinchona bark was used by the savages of Peru long before it was
introduced into European medicine.

Guaiacum, so valuable in chronic rheumatism, was introduced into
European medicine from the West India Islands and the northern coasts
of South America.

The excellent and popular tonic, quassia-wood, reaches us from Jamaica.

Logwood, a valuable astringent, largely used in diarrhœa, is a native
of Campeachy and other parts of Central America, and grows in the West
India Islands and India.

Copaiba, an oleo-resin from the copaiva tree, comes from the West
Indies and tropical parts of America, chiefly from the valley of the
Amazon. It is one of our most valuable remedies in diseases of the
genito-urinary organs.

Turkey corn, or Turkey pea (_Dicentra_, _Corydalis formosa_) grows
in Canada and as far south as Kentucky. It has a reputation as a
tonic, diuretic and alterative medicine, and is used in skin diseases,
syphilis, etc.

The negroes use the prickly ash, or toothache shrub (_Xanthoxylum
fraxineum_), as a blood purifier, especially in the spring. It has long
been officinal in the United States Pharmacopœia, and is considered
highly serviceable in chronic rheumatism.

The shrubby trefoil (_Ptelea trifoliata_) is a North American shrub,
much valued in dyspepsia, and as a stimulant in the typhoid state. Its
active principle is _berberine_.

The above are merely a few examples taken at random of the valuable
medicinal plants used by savages and primitive peoples.

Thus, as might have been expected, the discovery of the Americas led to
the introduction of many new drugs into medical practice.

Savages eat enormously.

Wrangel says each of the Yakuts ate in a day six times as many fish as
he could eat. Cochrane describes a five-year-old child of this race as
devouring three candles, several pounds of sour frozen butter, and a
large piece of yellow soap, and adds: “I have repeatedly seen a Yakut,
or a Yongohsi, devour forty pounds of meat in a day.”[86]

Yet the savage is less powerful than the civilized man. “He is unable,”
says Spencer, “to exert suddenly as great an amount of force, and he
is unable to continue the expenditure of force for so long a time.”




CHAPTER VI.

PRIMITIVE SURGERY.

 Arrest of Bleeding.—The Indian as Surgeon.—Stretchers, Splints, and
 Flint Instruments.—Ovariotomy.—Brain Surgery.—Massage.—Trepanning.—The
 Cæsarean Operation.—Inoculation.


Primitive man, from the earliest ages, must have been a diligent
student of medicine; it has indeed been wisely said that the first
man was the first physician. That is to say, he must have been at
least as careful to avoid noxious things and select good ones as the
beasts, and, as in the lowest scale, he must have been able in some
degree to observe, reflect, and compare one thing with another, and
so find out what hurt and what healed him, he would at once begin to
practise the healing art, either that branch of it which is directed
towards maintaining the health or that of alleviating suffering. When
his fellow-men were sick and died, he would be led to wonder why they
perished; and when other men stricken in like manner recovered, he
would speculate as to the causes of their cure. It is probable that at
first little attention was paid to the loss of blood when an artery was
severed. Soon, however, it would be remarked that under such conditions
the man would faint, and perhaps die. In process of time it would be
observed that when the injured blood-vessel was by any means, natural
or artificial, closed, the man quickly recovered. Then some one wiser
than the other would bind a strip of fibre or a piece of the skin of a
beast around the bleeding limb, and the hæmorrhage would cease, and the
operator would gain credit and reward. He would then, naturally, give
himself airs, and pretend, in course of time, to some importance, and
so become a healer by profession. It would soon be noticed that those
who, in the search for berries in the woods, ate of certain kinds,
more or less promptly died, and those who had abstained from their use
survived. It would be understood that such berries must not be eaten.
Or again, a man suffering from some pain in his stomach would eat of
a particular plant that seemed good for food, and his pain would be
relieved: it might be ages before primitive man would arrive at the
conclusion that there was some connection between the pain and its
disappearance after eating of the plant in question; but in process of
time the two things would be associated, and everybody would use the
curative plant for the particular pain.

It is natural to suppose that many such things would happen, and we
know as a fact that they have so happened in numberless instances.

Probably empirical medicine, in the most ancient times and amongst the
most savage tribes, had an armoury of weapons against pain and sickness
not greatly inferior to our own Materia Medica. The origin of the use
of most of our valuable medicines cannot be discovered.

“As no man can say who it was that first invented the use of clothes
and houses against the inclemency of the weather, so also can no
investigation point out the origin of medicine—mysterious as the
sources of the Nile. There has never been a time when it was not.”[87]

The origin of surgery is probably much older than that of medicine, if
by the term surgery we mean the application of herbs to wounds, either
as bandages or on account of their healing properties, and the use of
medicinal baths the like. Mr. Gladstone, in an address to a society of
herbalists, which was reported in the _Daily News_, 27th March, 1890,
said that an accident which occurred to himself, when cutting down a
tree, illustrated the very beginning of the healing art. He cut his
finger with the axe, and found that he had no handkerchief with him
with which to bind up the wound, so he took a leaf of the tree nearest
to him, and fastened it round his injured finger. The bleeding stopped
at once, and the wound, he declared, healed much more quickly and
favourably than previous injuries treated in a more scientific manner.
There is no doubt whatever that this is a good example of the primitive
manner of treating cuts and other flesh wounds. The cooling properties
of leaves would be recognised by the most primitive peoples; and as
a cut or other wound, by the process of inflammation, at once begins
to burn and throb, a cooling leaf would be the most natural thing
to apply. Some leaves which possess styptic and resinous properties
would staunch bleeding very effectually, and the mere act of binding
round the cut an application like a leaf would serve to draw together
the edges of the wound, and afford an antiseptic plaster of the most
scientific nature. It was, in fact, by just such means that the
valuable styptic properties of the matico leaves were first discovered
by Europeans.

If, in the depths of the forest, an Indian breaks his leg or arm
(said Dr. Kingston in his address at the British Medical Association
meeting at Nottingham, 1892), splints of softest material are at once
improvised. Straight branches are cut, of uniform length and thickness.
These are lined with down-like moss, or scrapings or shavings of wood;
or with fine twigs interlaid with leaves, if in summer; or with the
curled-up leaves of the evergreen cedar or hemlock, if in winter; and
the whole is surrounded with withes of willow or osier, or young birch.
Occasionally it is the soft but sufficiently unyielding bark of the
poplar or the bass-wood. Sometimes, when near the marshy margin of our
lakes or rivers, the wounded limb is afforded support with wild hay or
reeds of uniform length and thickness.

To carry a patient to his wigwam, or to an encampment, a stretcher is
quickly made of four young saplings, interwoven at their upper ends,
and on this elastic springy couch the injured man is borne away by his
companions. When there are but two persons, and an accident happens to
one of them, two young trees of birch or beech or hickory are used.
Their tops are allowed to remain to aid in diminishing the jolting
caused by the inequalities of the ground. No London carriage-maker
ever constructed a spring which could better accomplish the purpose.
A couple of crossbars preserve the saplings in position, and the
bark of the elm or birch, cut into broad bands, and joined to either
side, forms an even bed. In this way an injured man is brought by his
companion to a settlement, and often it has been found, on arrival,
that the fractured bones are firmly united, and the limb is whole
again. This is effected in less time than with the whites, for the
reparative power of these children of the forest is remarkable. In
their plenitude of health, osseous matter is poured out in large
quantity, and firm union is soon effected.

The reparative power of the aborigines, when injured, is equalled by
the wonderful stoicism with which they bear injuries, and inflict
upon themselves severest torture. They are accustomed to cut into
abscesses with pointed flint; they light up a fire at a distance from
the affected part (our counter-irritation); they amputate limbs with
their hunting-knives, checking the hæmorrhage with heated stones, as
surgeons were accustomed to do in Europe in the time of Ambroise Paré;
and sometimes they amputate their own limbs with more _sang froid_
than many young surgeons will display when operating on others. The
stumps of limbs amputated in this primitive manner are well formed, for
neatness is the characteristic of all the Indian’s handiwork.

The aborigines are familiar with, and practise extensively, the use of
warm fomentations. In every tribe their old women are credited with
the possession of a knowledge of local bathing with hot water, and of
medicated decoctions. The herbs they use are known to a privileged few,
and enhance the consideration in which their possessors are held.

The Turkish bath, in a simpler but not less effective form, is well
known to them. If one of their tribe suffers from fever, or from the
effects of long exposure to cold, a steam bath is readily improvised.
The tent of deer-skin is tightly closed; the patient is placed in one
corner: heated stones are put near him, and on these water is poured
till the confined air is saturated with vapour. Any degree of heat
and any degree of moisture can be obtained in this way. Europeans
often avail themselves of this powerful sudatory when suffering from
rheumatism.

The aborigines have their herbs—a few, not many. They have their
emetics and laxatives, astringents and emollients—all of which are
proffered to the suffering without fee or reward. The “Indian teas,”
“Indian balsams,” and other Indian “cure-alls”—the virtues of which
it sometimes takes columns of the daily journals to chronicle—are not
theirs. To the white man is left this species of deception.[88]

Mr. E. Palmer says that there is a tribe of Australian aborigines,
called “Kalkadoona,” adjoining the Mygoodano tribe of the Cloncurry,
who practise certain surgical operations at their _Bora_ initiations of
youths. They operate on the urethra with flint knives. The same custom
can be traced from the Cloncurry River to the Great Australian Bight in
the south. The females are in some of the south-western tribes operated
on in some manner to prevent conception. It is supposed that the ovary
is taken out, as in the operation of spaying.[89]

Such operations are sometimes performed with a mussel-shell.

Sir John Lubbock says of the Society Islanders that “they had no
knowledge of medicine as distinct from witchcraft; but some wonderful
stories are told of their skill in surgery. I will give perhaps the
most extraordinary. ‘It is related,’ says Mr. Ellis, ‘although,’ he
adds with perfect gravity, ‘I confess I can scarcely believe it, that
on some occasions, when the brain has been injured as well as the bone,
they have opened the skull, taken out the injured portion of the brain,
and, having a pig ready, have killed it, taken out the pig’s brains,
put them in the man’s head and covered them up.’”[90]

Massage in one form or another has been practised from immemorial
ages by all nations. Captain Cook tells us, in his narrative of the
people of Otaheite, New Holland, and other parts of Oceania, that they
practise massage in a way very similar to that which is employed by
more civilized nations. For the relief of muscular fatigue they resort
to a process which they call toogi-toogi, or light percussion regularly
applied for a long time. They also employ kneading and friction under
the names of Miti and Fota. African travellers inform us that the
medicine-men use these processes for the relief of injuries to the
joints, fractures, and pain of the muscles. Our word shampooing is
said to have been derived from the Hindu term chamboning. Dr. N. B.
Emerson, in 1870, gave an account of the lomi-lomi of the Sandwich
Islanders. He says that, “when footsore and weary in every muscle, so
that no position affords rest, and sleep cannot be obtained, these
manipulations relieve the stiffness and soothe to sleep, so that the
unpleasant effects of excessive exercise are not felt the next day, but
an unwonted suppleness of joint and muscle comes instead.”[91]

When we receive a blow or strike our bodies against a hard substance,
we instinctively rub the affected part. This is one of the simplest
and most effectual examples of natural surgery. When the emollient
properties of oil were discovered, rubbing with oil, or inunction, was
practised. The use of oil for this purpose in the East is extremely
ancient. Amongst the Greeks there was a class of rubbers who anointed
the bodies of the athletes. The oil was very thoroughly rubbed in, so
that the pores of the skin were closed and the profuse perspiration
thereby prevented. After the contest the athlete was subjected to
massage with oil, so as to restore the tone of the strained muscles.
These aliptae came to be recognised as a sort of medical trainers. A
similar class of slaves attended their masters in the Roman baths, and
they were also possessed of a certain kind of medical knowledge.

Discussing the origin of the operation of trepanning, Sprengel says
that “nothing is more instructive, in the history of human knowledge,
than to go back to the origin, or the clumsy rough sketch of the
discoveries to which man was conducted by accident or reflection,
and to follow the successive improvements which his methods and his
instruments undergo.”[92] The name of the inventor of this operation
is lost in the night of time. Hippocrates gives us the first account
of trepanning in his treatise on Wounds of the Head. We know, however,
that it was performed long before his time. Dr. Handerson, the
translator of Baas’ _History of Medicine_, says that human skulls of
the neolithic period have been discovered which bear evidences of
trepanning.[93]

The operation of cutting for the stone, like many other of the most
difficult operations of surgery, was for a long time given over to
ignorant persons who make a speciality of it. Sprengel attributes this
injurious custom to the ridiculous pride of the properly instructed
doctors, who disdained to undertake operations which could be
successfully performed by laymen.[94]

The Bafiotes, on the coast of South Guinea, practise cupping. They make
incisions in the skin, and place horns over the wounds, and then suck
out the air, withdrawing the blood by these means.[95]

“Felkin saw a case of the Cæsarean operation in Central Africa
performed by a man. At one stroke an incision was made through both the
abdominal walls and the uterus; the opening in the latter organ was
then enlarged, the hæmorrhage checked by the actual cautery, and the
child removed. While an assistant compressed the abdomen, the operator
then removed the placenta. The bleeding from the abdominal walls was
then checked. No sutures were placed in the walls of the uterus, but
the abdominal parietes were fastened together by seven figure-of-eight
sutures, formed with polished iron needles and threads of bark. The
wound was then dressed with a paste prepared from various roots, the
woman placed quietly upon her abdomen, in order to favour perfect
drainage, and the task of this African Spencer Wells was finished. It
appears that the patient was first rendered half unconscious by banana
wine. One hour after the operation the patient was doing well, and her
temperature never rose above 101° F., nor her pulse above 108. On the
eleventh day the wound was completely healed, and the woman apparently
as well as usual.”[96]

The South Sea Islanders perform trepanning, and some Australian tribes
perform ovariotomy.[97]

The missionary d’Entrecolles was the first to inform the Western world
of the method of inoculation for the small-pox, which the Chinese have
followed for many centuries.[98]

In many countries, and from the earliest times, says Sprengel,[99]
it has been customary to inoculate children with small-pox, because
experience has shown that a disease thus provoked assumes a milder and
more benign form than the disease which comes naturally.




CHAPTER VII.

UNIVERSALITY OF THE USE OF INTOXICANTS.

 Egyptian Beer and Brandy.—Mexican Pulque.—Plant-worship.—Union
 with the Godhead by Alcohol.—Soma.—The Cow-religion.—Caxiri.—Murwa
 Beer.—Bacchic Rites.—Spiritual Exaltation by Wine.


One of the strongest desires of human nature is the passion for some
kind or another of alcoholic stimulants. Intoxicating liquors are made
by savages in primeval forests, and travellers in all parts of the
world have found the natives conversant with the art of preparing some
sort of stimulating liquor in the shape of beer, wine, or spirit. The
ancient Egyptians had their beer and brandy, the Mexicans their aloe
beer or pulque. Probably the art of preparing fermented drinks was in
each nation discovered by accident. Berries soaked in water, set aside
and forgotten, saccharine roots steeped in water and juices preserved
for future use, have probably taught primitive man everywhere to
manufacture stimulating beverages. The influence of alcoholic drinks
on the development of the human mind must have been very great. If
primitive man has learned so much from his dreams, what has he not
learned from the exaltation produced by medicinal plants and alcoholic
infusions? If the savage conceives the leaves of a tree waving in the
breeze to be influenced by a spirit, it is certain that a medicinal
plant or a fermented liquor would be believed to be possessed by a
beneficent or evil principle or being. A poison would be possessed by a
demon, a healing plant by a good spirit, a stimulating liquor by a god.
Plant-worship would on these principles be found amongst the earliest
religious practices of mankind, and so we find it, although not to the
extent we might have expected.

Some savage peoples worship plants and make offerings to the spirits
which dwell in certain trees. It would seem that it is not the plant
or tree itself which is thus venerated, but the ghost which makes
it its dwelling. In classic times “the ivy was sacred to Osiris and
Bacchus, the pine to Neptune, herb mercury to Hermes, black hellebore
to Melampus, centaury to Chiron, the laurel to Aloeus, the hyacinth to
Ajax, the squill to Epimenes,” etc.[100]

Herbert Spencer thinks that plant-worship arose from the connection
between plants and the intoxication which they produce. It is very
remarkable that almost all peoples of whom we have any knowledge
produce from the maceration of various vegetable substances some kind
of intoxicating liquor, beer, wine, or spirit. As the excitement
produced by fainting, fever, hysteria, or insanity is ascribed amongst
savages and half-civilized peoples to a possessing spirit, so also is
any exaltation of the mind, by whatever means produced, attributed to
a similar cause. Supernatural beings they consider may be swallowed in
food or drink, especially the latter.[101]

Vambery speaks of opium-eaters who intoxicated themselves with the
drug; that they might be nearer the beings they loved so well. The
Mandingoes think that intoxication brings them into relation with the
godhead. A Papuan Islander hearing about the Christian God said, “Then
this God is certainly in your arrack, for I never feel happier than
when I have drunk plenty of it.”[102]

Any one who reads the sacred books of the East for the first time,
especially the Vedic hymns, will be puzzled to say whether the _Soma_,
which is referred to so often, is a deity or something to drink. If we
turn up the word in the index volume of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_,
we are astonished to find such an entry as this: “Soma, a drink, in
Brahminical ritual, iv. 205; as a deity, iv. 205; vii. 249.” The soma,
speaking scientifically, is an intoxicating liquor prepared from the
juice of a kind of milk-weed, _Asclepias acida_, sometimes called
the moon-plant. In the _Rig-Veda_ and the _Zend Avesta_ (where it
is called _Haoma_) it appears as a mighty god endowed with the most
wonderful exhilarating properties. Herbert Spencer, in the chapter of
the _Sociology_ entitled “Plant-Worship,” gives some of the expressions
used in the _Rig-Veda_ concerning this fermented soma-juice.

“This [Soma] when drunk, stimulates my speech [or hymn]; this called
forth the ardent thought.” (R.V. vi. 47, 3.)

“The ruddy Soma, generating hymns, with the powers of a poet.” (R.V.
ix. 25, 5.)

“We have drunk the Soma, we have become immortal, we have entered into
light, we have known the gods,” etc. (R.V. viii. 48, 3.)

“The former [priests] having strewed the sacred grass, offered up a
hymn to thee, O Soma, for great strength and food.” (R.V. lx. 110, 7.)

“For through thee, O pure Soma, our wise forefathers of old performed
their sacred rites.” (R.V. ix. 96, 11.)

“Soma—do thou enter into us,” etc.

Dr. Muir calls Soma “the Indian Dionysus.”

In Peru tobacco “has been called the sacred herb.”

Markham says, “The Peruvians still look upon coca with feelings of
superstitious veneration.” In the time of the Incas it was sacrificed
to the sun. In North Mexico, Bancroft says that some of the natives
“have a great veneration for the hidden virtues of poisonous plants,
and believe that if they crush or destroy one, some harm will happen to
them.” “And at the present time,” says Mr. Spencer, “in the Philippine
Islands, the ignatius bean, which contains strychnia and is used as
a medicine, is worn as an amulet and held capable of miracles.” The
Babylonians seem to have held the palm-tree as sacred, doubtless
because fermented palm-juice makes an intoxicating drink.

The Palal, the supreme pontiff of the cow-religion of the Toda people
of the Neilgherries, is initiated with incantations, and the smearing
of his body with the juice of a sacred shrub called the tude.[103]

He also drinks some of the extract mixed with water. He is purified by
soaking himself with the juice of this plant, and in a week has become
a god; he is the supreme being of the Todas. This transmutation is
suggestive of the sacred soma.[104]

The aborigines of the Amazon make an intoxicating drink from wild
fruits, which they use at their dances and festivals.[105] The people
on the Rio Negro use a liquor called “xirac” for the same purpose.
The Brazilian Indians have their “caxiri,” which is the same thing;
it is a beer made from mandiocca cakes. This mandiocca is chewed by
the old women, spat into a pan, and soaked in water till it ferments.
The Marghi people of North Africa have an intoxicating liquor called
“Komil,” made of Guinea-corn, which Barth said tastes like bad beer,
and is very confusing to the brain.[106]

The Apaches make an intoxicating liquor from cactus juice, or with
boiled and fermented corn. Their drunkenness is a preparation for
religious acts.[107]

The Kolarians of Bengal believe that the flowers of the maowah tree
(_Bassia latifolia_) will cure almost every kind of sickness. “Not a
cot,” says Reclus,[108] “but distils a heady liquor from the petals;
not a Khond man who does not get royally drunk.”

The people of the Nepal Himalayas make a beer from half-fermented
millet, which they call _Murwa_; it is weak, but very refreshing.
Hooker says the millet-seed is moistened, and ferments for two days; it
is then put into a vessel of wicker-work, lined with india-rubber gum
to make it water tight; and boiling water is poured in it with a ladle
of gourd, from a cauldron that stands all day over the fire. The fluid,
when fresh, tasted like negus.[109]

The fermented juice of the cocoa-nut palm makes an intoxicating toddy,
of which some birds in the forests round Bombay are as fond as are the
natives themselves.[110]

The natives of Tahiti made an intoxicating drink by chewing the fresh
root of the “ava,” a plant of the pepper tribe (_Piper methysticum_),
long before Europeans taught them to ferment the fruits of the country
about the year 1796. The chewed root was rinsed in water, and by
fermentation a drowsy form of intoxicating liquor was produced of which
the natives were extremely fond. They now prefer gin and brandy. The
effects of ava or kava intoxication are said to be somewhat similar to
those of opium. The Nukahivans drink kava as a remedy for phthisis; it
would seem to be of real value in bronchitis, as a chemical examination
of the root shows it to contain an oleo-resin probably somewhat akin to
balsam of Peru or tolu. It is an ally of the matico, and in its nature
and operation closely resembles cubeb and copaiba, which are used to
produce a constriction of the capillary vessels.

Cascarilla bark and other barks of the various species of croton, of
the Bahama and West India Islands, have valuable stimulant properties
universally recognised in modern medicine. They are used in the
treatment of dyspepsia and as a mild tonic.

The Carib races were fully conversant with the valuable properties
of these drugs; the native priests or doctors used the dried plants
for fumigations and in religious ceremonies; and curiously enough at
the present day cascarilla bark is one of the ingredients of incense.
An infusion of the leaves was used internally in Carib medicine, and
the dried bark was mixed with tobacco and smoked, as is often done in
civilized lands.

Anacreontic poetry and Bacchic rites were merely intellectual
developments of sentiments which the savage feels and expresses in a
coarse animal way, just as the alderman’s sense of gratification and
perfect contentment after a civic banquet is not altogether different
in kind from that felt by a replete quadruped.

Alcoholic intoxication must have produced in primitive man visions far
surpassing those of his pleasantest dreams, and his brain must have
been filled with images, sometimes pleasant, sometimes horrible, of
a more pronounced character than those which visited him in sleep.
At such times would come some of the visitants from the world of
imagination to the mind of primitive man which have had the most
important influence on his intellectual development. The drinking
customs of our working classes of the present day are in a great degree
prompted by the longing which man in every condition has to escape for
a while from the squalid, material surroundings of daily life into the
ideal world of intellectual pleasures, however low these may often be.
“A national love for strong drink,” says a competent authority,[111]
“is a characteristic of the nobler and more energetic populations of
the world; it accompanies public and private enterprise, constancy of
purpose, liberality of thought, and aptitude for war.” Tea, haschish,
hops, alcohol, and tobacco stimulate in small doses and narcotise in
larger; there have been cases known of tea intoxication.[112]

The desire of escaping from self into an ideal world, a world of
novelty and pleasures unimaginable, had much to do with the festivals
in Greece in honour of Dionysus; it was in some places considered
a crime to remain sober at the Dionysia; to be intoxicated on such
occasions was to show one’s gratitude for the gift of wine.




CHAPTER VIII.

CUSTOMS CONNECTED WITH PREGNANCY AND CHILD-BEARING.

 The Couvade, its Prevalence in Savage and Civilized Lands.—Pregnant
 Women excluded from Kitchens.—The Deities of the Lying-in Chamber.


Dr. Tylor[113] gives the following account of the Carib couvade in the
West Indies from the work of Du Tertre:[114]—

“When a child is born, the mother goes presently to her work, but the
father begins to complain, and takes to his hammock, and there he is
visited as though he were sick, and undergoes a course of dieting which
would cure of the gout the most replete of Frenchmen. How they can fast
so much and not die of it,” continues the narrator, “is amazing to me,
for they sometimes pass the five first days without eating or drinking
anything, then up to the tenth they drink _oüycou_, which has about as
much nourishment in it as beer. These ten days passed, they begin to
eat cassava only, drinking _oüycou_, and abstaining from everything
else for the space of a whole month. During this time, however, they
only eat the inside of the cassava, so that what is left is like the
rim of a hat when the block has been taken out, and all the cassava
rims they keep for the feast at the end of forty days, hanging them
up in the house with the cord. When the forty days are up they invite
their relations and best friends, who being arrived, before they set
to eating, hack the skin of this poor wretch with agouti-teeth, and
draw blood from all parts of his body in such sort that from being
sick by pure imagination they often make a real patient of him. This
is, however, so to speak, only the fish, for now comes the sauce they
prepare for him; they take sixty or eighty large grains of pimento or
Indian pepper, the strongest they can get, and after well washing it
in water they wash with this peppery infusion the wounds and scars of
the poor fellow, who I believe suffers no less than if he were burnt
alive; however, he must not utter a single word if he will not pass
for a coward and a wretch. This ceremony finished, they bring him back
to his bed, where he remains some days more, and the rest go and make
good cheer in the house at his expense. Nor is this all; for through
the space of six whole months he eats neither birds nor fish, firmly
believing that this would injure the child’s stomach, and that it would
participate in the natural faults of the animals on which its father
had fed; for example, if the father ate turtle, the child would be deaf
and have no brains like this animal, if he ate manati, the child would
have little round eyes like this creature, and so on with the rest. It
seems that this very severe fasting is only for the first child, that
for the others being slight.”

Among the Arawaks of Surinam a father must kill no large game for some
time after his child is born. When a wife has borne a child, amongst
the Abipones, the husband is put to bed and well wrapped up and kept as
though he had had the child. Among the Land Dayaks of Borneo, after the
birth of his child the father is kept in seclusion indoors for several
days and dieted on rice and salt to prevent the child’s stomach from
swelling. All this is due to a belief in a bodily union between father
and child; different persons with these savages are not necessarily
separate beings.

Tylor says[115] that Venegas mentions the couvade among the Indians
of California; Zuccheli in West Africa; Captain Van der Hart in
Bouro, in the Eastern Archipelago; and Marco Polo in Eastern Asia in
the thirteenth century. In Europe even in modern times it existed in
the neighbourhood of the Pyrenees. Strabo said,[116] that among the
Iberians of the North of Spain, the women, after the birth of a child,
tend their husbands, putting them to bed instead of going themselves.
Among the Basques, says Michel, “in valleys whose population recalls
in its usages the infancy of society, the women rise immediately
after childbirth and attend to the duties of the household, while the
husband goes to bed, taking the baby with him, and thus receives the
neighbours’ compliments.” Diodorus Siculus mentions the same thing of
the Corsicans (v. 14). Hudibras says,[117]—

    “For though Chineses go to bed
    And lie in, in their ladies’ stead,
    And, for the pains they took before,
    Are nurs’d and pamper’d to do more.”

On this remarks Dr. Zachary Grey[118]:—

“The Chinese men of quality, when their wives are brought to bed, are
nursed and tended with as much care as women here, and are supplied
with the best strengthening and nourishing diet in order to qualify
them for future services.” This is the custom of the Brazilians, if we
may believe Masseus, who observes, “that women in travail are delivered
without great difficulty, and presently go about their household
business: the husband in her stead keepeth his bed, is visited by his
neighbours, hath his broths made him, and junkets sent to comfort him.”

“Among the Iroquois, a mother who shrieks during her labour is
forbidden to bear other children, and some of the South American
Indians killed the children of the mothers who shrieked, from the
belief that they will grow up to be cowards.”[119]

The origin of the couvade is not to be traced to the father and mother,
says Starcke; it has to do simply with the well-being of the child. The
father’s powers of endurance, tested so severely as we have seen, are
believed to be assured to the child.[120]

Max Müller traces the origin of the couvade to the derision of friends
of both sexes.

Dobrizhoffen says of the Abipones:[121] “They comply with this custom
with the greater care and readiness because they believe that the
father’s rest and abstinence have an extraordinary effect on the
well-being of new-born infants, and is, indeed, absolutely necessary
for them. For they are quite convinced that any unseemly act on the
father’s part would injuriously affect the child on account of the
sympathetic tie which naturally subsists between them, so that in the
event of the child’s death the women all blame the self-indulgence of
the father, and find fault with this or that act.”

Badaga nursing-women physic themselves with ashes and pieces of
sweet-flag (_Acorus calamus_), an aromatic plant, with the idea of
communicating medicinal properties to the milk. They also administer
to the baby assafœtida and a certain sacred confection taken from the
entrails of a bull and similar to the bezoar stones so celebrated in
the middle ages.[122]

The Badaga folk do not permit a pregnant woman to enter the room where
the provisions are kept and the fireplace stands; it would be feared
that her condition, her supposed uncleanness, might lessen the virtues
of the fire or diminish the nutritious value of the food.[123]

Pliny says, “there is no limit to the marvellous powers attributed
to females.”[124] At certain times, according to him, a woman can
scare away hailstorms, whirlwinds, and lightnings, by going about in
scanty costume. If she walk round a field of wheat at such times, the
caterpillars, worms, beetles, and other vermin will fall from the ears
of corn. If she touch “young vines, they are irremediably injured, and
both rue and ivy, plants possessed of highly medicinal virtues, will
die instantly upon being touched by her.” Bees, he says, will forsake
their hives if she touches them, linen boiling in a cauldron will turn
black, and the edge of a razor will become blunted. The bitumen that
is found in Judæa will yield to nothing but this, and Tacitus says the
same thing. Marvellous to say, poisonous and injurious as Pliny and
other writers, and even popular belief at the present day, consider
the catamenial fluid to be, a host of writers on medical and magical
subjects have attributed certain remedial properties to it. Pliny says
it is useful, as a topical application, for gout, the bite of a mad dog
(what has _not_ been recommended for this!), for tertian or quartan
fevers and for epilepsy. Reduced to ashes and mixed with soot and wax,
it is a cure for ulcers upon all kinds of beasts of burden; mixed in
the same way with oil of roses and applied to the forehead, it cured
the migraine of Roman ladies. Applied to the doorposts, it neutralises
all the spells of the magicians—a set of men which even the credulous
Pliny characterizes as the most lying in existence.

Both savages and classical peoples had the same curious notions about
the touch of catamenial women. There may possibly be some foundation in
bacteriology to account for them.

St. Augustine says:[125] “The woman in child-bed must have three gods
to look to her after her deliverance, lest Sylvanus come in the night
and torment her: in signification whereof, three men must go about the
house in the night, and first strike the thresholds with an hatchet,
then with a pestle, and then sweep them with besoms, that by these
signs of worship they may keep Sylvanus out.”

Lying-in women in Germany in the seventeenth century were simply
crammed with food about every two hours, and they seem to have taken no
harm from the practice.




                               BOOK II.

             _THE MEDICINE OF THE ANCIENT CIVILIZATIONS._




CHAPTER I.

EGYPTIAN MEDICINE.

 Antiquity of Egyptian Civilization.—Surgical Bandaging.—Gods
 and Goddesses of Medicine.—Medical Specialists.—Egyptians
 claimed to have discovered the Healing Art.—Medicine largely
 Theurgic.—Magic and Sorcery forbidden to the Laity.—The
 Embalmers.—Anatomy.—Therapeutics.—Plants in use in Ancient
 Egypt.—Surgery and Chemistry.—Disease-demons.—Medical Papyri.—Great
 Skill of Egyptian Physicians.


So far as we are able to judge from the records of the past which
recent investigations have made familiar to us, the civilization of
Egypt is the most ancient of which we have accurate knowledge. The
contending claims of India to a higher antiquity for its civilization
cannot here be discussed, and for the purposes of this work the oldest
place in the civilization of the world must be assigned to Egypt.

It is highly probable that the first kingdom of Egypt existed eight
thousand years back. The history of Egypt as we have it in her
monuments and records is far more trustworthy than the stories which
the Chinese and other ancient peoples tell of their past. Assyria,
Babylonia, and Chaldæa have histories reaching back to the twilight
of the ages; but for practical purposes we must content ourselves
with tracing the rise and progress of civilization as we decipher
it on the banks of the Nile. So far as medicine and chemistry are
concerned, we shall discover abundant matter to interest us. We
require no other proof than the mummies in our museums to convince us
that the Egyptians from the period at which those interesting objects
date must have possessed a very accurate knowledge of anatomy, of
pharmacy, and a skill in surgical bandaging very far surpassing that
possessed now-a-days by even the most skilful professors of the art.
Dr. Granville says: “There is not a single form of bandage known to
modern surgery, of which far better and cleverer examples are not seen
in the swathings of the Egyptian mummies. The strips of linen are found
without one single joint, extending to 1000 yards in length.” It is
said that there is not a fracture known to modern surgery which could
not have been successfully treated by the priest-physicians of ancient
Egypt. The great divinities of Egypt were Isis and Osiris; the former
was the goddess of procreation and birth. As it was she who decreed
life and death, and decided the fate of men, it is not surprising to
find her the chief of the divinities of the healing art; she had proved
her claims as the great chief of physicians by recalling to life her
son Horus.

The Æsculapius of the Egyptians was Imhotep; he was the god of the
sciences, and was the son of Ptah and Pakht. The gods of Egypt were
worshipped in triads or trinities, and many of the great temples were
devoted to the worship of one or other of these trinities, that of
Memphis consisted of Ptah, Pakht, and Imhotep. Thoth or Tauut was
similar to Imhotep; he was the god of letters, and, as the deity of
wisdom, he aids Horus against Set, the representative of physical evil.
By many writers he is considered to be the Egyptian Æsculapius. He
has some evident relationship to the Greek Hermes. “Thoth,” says Dr.
Baas (_Hist. Med._, p. 14), “is supposed to have been the author of
the oldest Egyptian medical works, whose contents were first engraved
upon pillars of stone. Subsequently collected into the book _Ambre_ or
_Embre_ (a title based upon the initial words of this book, viz. ‘Ha
em re em per em hru,’ _i.e._ ‘Here begins the book of the preparation
of drugs for all parts of the human body’), they formed a part of the
so-called ‘Hermetic Books,’ from whose prescriptions no physician might
deviate, unless he was willing to expose himself to punishment in case
the patient died. This punishment was threatened because the substance
of the medical, as well as the religious works of the Egyptians—and
the science of the priests united in itself medicine, theology, and
philosophy—was given, according to their view, by the gods themselves,
and a disregard of their prescriptions would be nothing less than
sacrilege.” The Hermetic books, says Clement of Alexandria, were
forty-two in number, of which six “of the pastophor” were medical. The
famous _Book of the Dead_ is supposed by Bunsen to have been one of the
Hermetic books. The papyrus of Ebers, believed by that Egyptologist to
date from the year 1500 B.C., is considered to have been of the number
of the medical books of Hermes Trismegistus. The Papyrus Ebers is
preserved in Leipsic, and, though at present only partially deciphered,
abundantly shows the great advance already made at so distant a period
as the fourth millennium before the Christian era in the arts of
medicine and surgery.

One of the authors mentioned in the papyrus is an oculist of Byblos in
Phœnicia. This proves not only that there were specialists in diseases
of the eye at that period, but that neighbouring nations contributed of
their store of scientific knowledge to enrich that of the Egyptians.

Dr. Baas informs us that this papyrus describes “remedies for diseases
of the stomach, the abdomen, and the urinary bladder; for the cure of
swellings of the glands in the groin (buboes) and the ‘kehn-mite’; ‘the
Book of the Eyes’; remedies for ulcers of the head, for greyness of the
hair, and promotion of its growth; ointments to heal and strengthen the
nerves; medicines to cure diseases of the tongue, to strengthen the
teeth, to remove lice and fleas; remedies for the hearing and for the
organs of smell; the preparation of the famous Kyphi; ‘The Secret Book
of the Physician’ (the science of the movement of the heart, and the
knowledge of the heart, according to the priestly physician Nebsuchet);
prescriptions for the eyes according to the views of the priest Chui,
a Semite of Byblos; ‘Book of the Banishing of Pains,’ recipes for
mouth-pills for women, to render the odour of the mouth agreeable; the
various uses of the tequem tree, etc. The papyrus has marginal notes,
like _nefer_ (good), etc., which Lauth assigns to the year B.C. 1469—an
evidence that its prescriptions had been tested in practice.”[126]

Osiris (who would appear to be the same deity as Apis or Serapis)
and the goddess Isis, who was his wife and sister, were held by the
Egyptians to have been the inventors of the medical arts. A very
ancient inscription on a column says: “My father is Chronos, the
youngest of all the gods. I am the king Osiris, who has been through
all the earth; even to the habitable lands of the Indies, to those
which are under the Bear, even to the sources of the Danube, and
besides to the Ocean. I am the eldest son of Chronos, and the scion
of a beautiful and noble race; I am the parent of the day, there is
no part of the world where I have not been, and I have filled all the
world with my benefactions.” Another column has these words: “I am
Isis, queen of all this country, who has been instructed by Thoth; no
one is able to unbind what I have bound; I am the eldest daughter of
Chronos, the youngest of the gods. I am the wife and the sister of King
Osiris. It is I who first taught mankind the art of agriculture. I am
the mother of King Horus. It is I who shine in the dog-star. It is I
who built the city of Bubastis. Farewell, farewell, Egypt, where I have
been reared.” It appears from these inscriptions that Isis and Osiris
were contemporary with Thoth or Hermes.

Diodorus says that Isis was believed by the Egyptian priests to have
invented various medicines and to have been an expert practitioner of
the healing art, and that she was on this account raised to the ranks
of the gods, where she still takes interest in the health of mankind.
She was supposed to indicate appropriate remedies for diseases in
dreams, and such remedies were always efficacious, even in cases where
physicians had failed to do any good.

The inscription informs us that Osiris had filled the earth with his
benefactions. The Egyptian priests believed that Thoth was the inventor
of the arts and sciences in general, and the king Osiris and the queen
Isis invented those which were necessary to life. Isis therefore
invented agriculture, and Osiris is credited with having invented
medicine. Apis, who is evidently the same person as Osiris, is said by
Clement of Alexandria to have discovered medicine before Io went to
Egypt.

Cyril of Alexandria says that Apis was the first to invent the art of
medicine, or who exercised it with more success than his predecessors,
having been instructed by Æsculapius.[127]

Plutarch says[128] that Apis and Osiris were, according to Egyptian
traditions, two names of one and the same person, and this is confirmed
by Strabo and Theodoret. Others say that Serapis was a third name of
Osiris, though some consider that Serapis was a name of Æsculapius.

Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris, was the Egyptian sun-god, and was
the same as the Apollo of the Greeks. He was born with his finger on
his mouth, indicative of mystery and secrecy; and so, probably, was for
this reason connected with medicine. In the mystical works of Hermes
Trismegistus, he plays an important part. Diodorus attributes to Horus
the invention of medicine. He says that Isis having found in the water
her son Horus, who had been killed by the Titans, restored him to
life and made him immortal. Diodorus adds that he was the same god as
Apollo, and that he learned the arts of medicine and divination from
his mother, in consequence of which instruction he had been of great
service to mankind by his oracles and his remedies. It is difficult
to see how on this account Horus can be considered as the inventor of
medicine, a title which was surely due to his mother.

In the judgment scene in the Book of the Dead on the papyrus of Ani we
have the god Thoth, under the symbol of the cynocephalus, or dog-headed
ape. Anubis examines the indicator of the Balance. Before Anubis stands
Destiny, behind him are Fortune and the Goddess of Birth. Above Destiny
is a symbol of the cradle. The human-headed bird is the soul of the
deceased. On the right of the scene, Thoth, the medicine-god and scribe
of the gods (with the head of an ibis), notes the result of the trial.
Behind Thoth is the monster Amemit, the devourer, with the head of
a crocodile, the middle parts of a lion, and the hind-quarters of a
hippopotamus. Thoth pronounces judgment: “The heart of Ani is weighed,
and his soul standeth in evidence thereof; his case is straight upon
the great Balance.” The gods reply, “Righteous and just is Osiris, Ani,
the triumphant.”[129]

Eusebius, Psellus, and others say that Hermes Trismegistus was a priest
and philosopher who lived a little after the time of Moses. He taught
the Egyptians mathematics, theology, medicine, and geography. Of the
forty-two most useful books of Hermes six treated of medicine, anatomy,
and the cure of disease.[130]

Pliny says[131] that the Egyptians claimed the honour of having
invented the art of curing diseases. Wilkinson points out[132] that
“the study of medicine and surgery appears to have commenced at a very
early period in Egypt, since Athothes, the second king of the country,
is stated to have written upon the subject of anatomy, and the schools
of Alexandria[133] continued till a late period to enjoy the reputation
and display the skill they had inherited from their predecessors.
Hermes was said to have written six books on medicine, the first of
which related to anatomy; and the various recipes known to have been
beneficial were recorded, with their peculiar cases, in the memoirs of
physic, inscribed among the laws, which were deposited in the principal
temple of the place, as at Memphis in that of Ptah, or Vulcan.” We are
told in Genesis l. 2 that “Joseph commanded his servants the physicians
to embalm his father: and the physicians embalmed Israel.” It is not
probable that the embalmers were regular practising physicians. The
dissectors of the human body were not held in honour amongst the
Egyptians, and for sanitary reasons it is highly improbable that
doctors in attendance upon the sick would have engaged in this work;
but as the art of embalming demanded considerable anatomical knowledge,
it is more likely that a class of men similar to our dissecting-room
assistants at the medical schools and hospitals were employed for this
purpose.

The art of medicine in ancient Egypt consisted of two branches—the
higher, which was the theurgic part, and the lower, which was the art
of the physician proper. The theurgic class devoted themselves to
magic, counteracting charms by prayers, and to the interpretation of
the dreams of the sick who had sought their aid in the temples. The
inferior class were practitioners who simply used natural means in
their profession as healers. Amongst the Egyptian Platonists, theurgy
was an imaginary science, which is thus described by Murdock: “it was
supposed to have been revealed to men by the gods themselves in very
ancient times, and to have been handed down by the priests; [it was]
also the ability, by means of certain acts, words, and symbols, to
move the gods to impart secrets which surpass the powers of reason to
lay open the future.” The higher physicians were priest-magicians, the
lower class were priests who were called Pastophori; as Isis and the
priests were connected with the healing art, the Pastophori were highly
esteemed for their medical skill apart from magic. These officials were
so called from the fact that they had to bear, in the ceremonies in the
temples, the παστός, or sacred shawl, to raise it at appropriate times,
and so discover the god in the adytum.[134]

It was their duty to study the last six of the Hermetic books, as it
was that of the higher grade to study the first thirty-six.

Professor Ebers explained to Dr. Puschmann[135] that the Pastophori
“constituted a class of priests who held by no means so low a rank
as is attributed to them in historical works. The doctors were bound
to maintain a spiritual character, and allowed themselves therefore
to rank with the Pastophori, although the higher priestly dignities
probably remained open to them. On the other hand, the Pastophori were
by no means likewise doctors, as many think, but had as a body quite
other functions, as their name indeed indicates. The relation of the
Pastophori to the doctors was doubtless the same as that of the scholar
to the cleric in the Christian middle ages; all scholars did not belong
to the clergy, but at the same time all clergymen might be considered
scholars.”

The principle of authority was paramount in Egyptian medicine. So long
as the doctor faithfully followed the instructions of the ancient
exponents of his art, he could do as he liked with his patient; but if
he struck out a path for himself, and his patient unhappily died, he
forfeited his own life. Diodorus Siculus leads us to suppose that the
physicians formed their diagnosis according to the position occupied
by the patient in his bed. This is singularly like the method of
diagnosing diseases in use amongst the ancient Hindus. Medicine in
Egypt, after all, was only an art; the absurd reverence for authority
prevented any real progress. Kept back by these fixed regulations, its
freedom was restricted on every side; otherwise, with the unbounded
facility for making post-mortem examinations, Egyptian medicine would
have made immense advance.

Concerning the specialism which prevailed amongst Egyptian doctors,
Herodotus says: “The art of medicine is thus divided amongst them:
each physician applies himself to one disease only, and not more. All
places abound in physicians; some physicians are for the eyes, others
for the head, others for the teeth, others for the parts about the
belly, and others for internal disorders.”[136]

With reference to the teeth, it is interesting to observe that some of
the dental work found in opening mummies is equal to our own.

Sir J. Wilkinson says[137] that the embalmers were probably members
of the medical profession as well as of the class of priests. Pliny
states that, during this process, certain examinations took place,
which enabled them to study the disease of which the patient had died.
They appear to have been made in compliance with an order from the
government,[138] as he says the kings of Egypt had the bodies opened
after death to ascertain the nature of their diseases, by which means
alone the remedy for phthisical complaints was discovered. Indeed,
it is reasonable to suppose that a people so advanced as were the
Egyptians in knowledge of all kinds, and whose medical art was so
systematically arranged that they had regulated it by some of the
very same laws followed by the most enlightened and skilful nations
of the present day, would not have omitted so useful an inquiry, or
have failed to avail themselves of the means which the process adopted
for embalming the body placed at their disposal. And nothing can more
clearly prove their advancement in the study of human diseases than
the fact of their assigning to each his own peculiar branch, under the
different heads of oculists, dentists, those who cured diseases in the
head, those who confined themselves to intestinal complaints, and those
who attended to secret and internal maladies. They must have possessed
an intimate knowledge of drugs, to have enabled them to select those of
an antiseptic character suitable for the preservation of the mummies.
That their practical knowledge of anatomy must have been considerable
is proved by the skill with which they removed the more perishable
parts of the body in the process of embalming. The embalmers, says
Ebers, were all enrolled in a guild which existed down to Roman times,
as is shown in various Greek papyri.

In the wall-cases 30-33 in the upper floor of the second Egyptian room
of the British Museum, there is a set of Canopic jars which held the
intestines of the human body, which were always embalmed separately.
They were placed near the bier and were four in number, each one being
dedicated to one of the four children of Horus, the genii of the dead.
The stomach and large intestines were dedicated to Amset, the smaller
intestines to Hâpi, the lungs and heart to Tuamâvtef, and the liver
and gall-bladder to Kebhsenuf. Poor people had to be content with mere
models of these vases.[139]

The dissectors were the _paraschistes_, who cut open as much of the
body as the law permitted with an Ethiopian stone. As soon as one of
them had made the requisite incision he had to fly, pursued by those
present, who cursed him bitterly, and flung stones at him. It was
considered hateful to inflict any wound on a human body; and however
necessary the act might be, the agent incurred the greatest odium.

The Egyptian doctors knew very little of anatomy as a science; they
were, however, acquainted with the fact that the blood-vessels had
their origin from the heart, and that the blood was distributed to the
body from that organ. There is an interesting treatise on the heart in
the Papyrus Ebers. In another medical papyrus we find the following
anatomical details concerning the blood-vessels:—

“The head of man has thirty-two vessels; they carry the breath to his
heart; they give inspiration to all his members. There are two vessels
to the breasts; they give warmth to the lungs—for healing them, one
must make a remedy of flour of fresh wheat, herb haka, and sycamore
_teput_—make a decoction and let the patient drink it; she will be
well. There are two vessels to the legs. If any one has a disease of
the legs, if his arms are without strength, it is because the secret
vessel of the leg has taken the malady,—a remedy must be made.... There
are two vessels to the arms; if a man’s arm is suffering, if he has
pains in his fingers, say that this is a case of shooting pains....
There are two vessels of the occiput, two of the sinciput, two of the
interior, two of the eyelids, two of the nostrils, and two of the left
ear. The breath of life enters by them. There are two vessels of the
right ear; the breath enters by them.”

It is uncertain whether by the term vessels the Egyptians understand
the arteries, the veins, the nerves, or some imaginary conduits.[140]

The ancient Egyptians were zealous students of medicine; yet, as Dr.
Ebers tells us, they also thought that the efficacy of the treatment
was enhanced by magic formulæ. The prescriptions in the famous Ebers
Papyrus are accompanied by forms of exorcism to be used at the same
time; “and yet many portions of this work,” says Ebers, “give evidence
of the advanced knowledge of its authors.”[141]

Origen says[142] that the Egyptians believed there were thirty-six
demons, or thirty-six gods of the air, who shared amongst them the body
of man, which is divided into as many parts. He adds that the Egyptians
knew the names of those demons, and believed that if they invoked
the proper demon of the affected part they would be cured. Magic and
sorcery were arts which were forbidden to the laity.

Many magical rites and animistic customs connected with the Egyptian
religion closely resemble those which prevail over the whole continent
of Africa. The basis of the Egyptian religion is supposed by some
authorities to be of a purely Nigritian character; on which has been
superimposed certain elevated characteristics due to Asiatic settlers
and conquerors. The worship of the negroes proper is simply fetishism
combined with tree and animal worship and a strong belief in sorcery.

The great and peculiar feature of Egyptian magic lay in the fact that
its formulæ were intended to assimilate to the gods those who sought
protection from the evils of life. The incantation was not in the
nature of a prayer. As M. Lenormant says:[143] “The virtue of the
formulæ lay not in an invocation of the divine power, but in the fact
of a man’s proclaiming himself such or such a god; and when he, in
pronouncing the incantation, called to his aid any one of the various
members of the Egyptian Pantheon, it was as one of themselves that he
had a right to the assistance of his companions.” In the Harris Papyrus
is a fragment of one of the magical tracts of the medicine-god Thoth,
in which is an incantation for protection against crocodiles:—

    “Do not be against me! I am Amen.
    I am Anhur, the good guardian;
    I am the great master of the sword.
    Do not erect thyself! I am Month.
    Do not try to surprise me! I am Set.
    Do not raise thy two arms against me! I am Sothis.
    Do not seize me! I am Sethu.”[144]

Disease-demons recognised the power of the gods, and obeyed their
commands. An inscription on a monument of the time of Ramses XII. tells
how the Princess Bint-resh, sister of Queen Noferu-ra, was cured in a
serious illness by the image of the god Khonsu being sent to her after
the “learned expert” Thut-emhib had failed to do her any good. When the
god appeared at her bedside, she was cured on the spot; the evil spirit
of the disease acknowledged the superior power of Khonsu, and came out
of her after making an appropriate speech.[145]

In the records of a trial about a harem conspiracy in the reign of
Ramses III., we learn that a house steward had used some improper
enchantments. In some fragments of the Lee and Rollin Papyrus, we
read: “Then he gave him a writing from the rolls of the books of
Ramses III., the great god, his lord. Then there came upon him a divine
magic, an enchantment for men. He reached [thereby?] to the side of
the women’s house, and into that other great and deep place. He formed
figures of wax, with the intention of having them carried in by the
hand of the land-surveyor Adiroma, to alienate the mind of one of the
girls, and to bewitch others.... Now, however, he was brought to trial
on account of them, and there was found in them incitation to all kinds
of wickedness, and all kinds of villainy which it was his intention to
do.... He had made some magic writings to ward off ill-luck; he had
made some gods of wax, and some human figures to paralyse the limbs
of a man; and he had put these into the hand of Bokakamon without the
sun-god Ra having permitted that he should accomplish this,” etc.[146]

The actual medicaments used in Egyptian medical practice were not
considered effectual without combination with magical remedies. The
prescription might contain nitre, or cedar chips, or deer horn, or it
might be an ointment or application of some herbs; but it would not be
efficacious without some charm to deal with the spiritual mischief of
the case. In administering an emetic, for example, it was necessary
to employ the following appeal to the evil spirit of the disorder:
“Oh, demon, who art lodged in the stomach of M., son of N., thou
whose father is called Head-Smiter, whose name is Death, whose name
is cursed for ever,” etc. It was not the natural remedy which called
the supernatural to its aid; but in cultivated Egypt, this combination
was due to the theurgic healer availing himself of natural remedies
to assist his magic. Science was beginning to work for man’s benefit,
but could not yet afford to discard sentimental aids which, by calming
the mind of the sufferer, assisted its beneficent work. The different
parts of the human body were confided to the protection of a special
divinity. A calendar of lucky and unlucky days was devised, by which
it could be ascertained what was proper to be medically done, or left
undone, at certain times. Barth, in his _Travels in Africa_, in the
border region of the desert, tells of a native doctor who followed such
a system. He used to treat his patients according to the days of the
week on which they came: one day was a calomel day, another was devoted
to magnesia, and a third to tartar emetic; and everybody requiring
medicine had to take that appropriate to the day.

The Egyptians distinguished between black and white magic. The learned
priests practised the curative acts of magic; but it was held to be a
great crime to use black magic whereby to injure men or assist unlawful
passions.

Homer sings the praises of the medicinal herbs of prolific Egypt, where
Pæon imparts to all the Pharian race his healing arts;[147] and in
Jeremiah,[148] the daughter of Egypt is told that “in vain” she shall
“use _many medicines_,” for she shall not be cured.

The ancient Egyptians depended greatly upon clysters in the treatment
of many diseases besides those of the intestines. They were composed of
a mixture of medicinal herbs, with milk, honey, sweet beer, salt, etc.
The use of clysters by the Egyptians was remarked by Pliny and Diodorus
Siculus, and the invention was attributed by the former to the ibis,
who, with its long bill, performed the necessary operation.[149]

This absurd idea arose from a confusion between the hieroglyph for the
ibis, and the god Thoth, the name of each having the same sign.[150]

A comparison of the prescriptions of the medical papyri with those of
the ancient Greek physicians, especially Galen and Dioscorides, shows
a considerable family likeness of the Greek system of therapeutics to
that of the Egyptians. Chabas particularizes the following facts:—Honey
was used in place of sugar in many recipes by Egyptians and Greeks.
Wine was mixed with honey, and human milk was administered in the
form of clysters by Egyptians and by Galen and Dioscorides. The use
of barley drink, palm wine, nitre, or sal ammoniac, incense as an
external application, blood mixed with wine, urine as a liniment,
_Lapis memphites_, and several other drugs is prescribed for the same
disorders and in the same manner in the land of the Pharaohs and in
ancient Greece.

The famous “Ebers Papyrus” was purchased in 1874 by Dr. Ebers, at
Thebes. “This papyrus contains one hundred and ten pages, each page
consisting of about twenty-two lines of bold hieratic writing. It may
be described as an Encyclopædia of Medicine, as known and practised by
the Egyptians of the eighteenth dynasty; and it contains prescriptions
for all kinds of diseases—some borrowed from Syrian medical lore, and
some of such great antiquity that they are ascribed to the mythologic
ages, when the gods yet reigned personally upon earth. Among others,
we are given the recipe for an application whereby Osiris cured Ra
of the headache.”[151] This is the oldest of all the medical papyri
hitherto discovered. It comes down to us, says Dr. Ebers,[152] from the
eighteenth dynasty. The “Medical Papyrus” of Berlin is second in point
of antiquity; and a Hieratic MS. in London, the third.[153]

In the Ebers Medical Papyrus is an example of old Egyptian diagnosis
and therapeutics: “When thou findest any one with a hardness in his
_re-het_ (pit of the stomach), and when after eating he feels a
pressure in his intestines, his stomach (_het_) is swollen, and he
feels bad in walking, like one who suffers from heat in his back;
then observe him when he lies stretched out, and if thou findest his
intestines hot, and a hardness in his _re-het_, say to thyself, this is
a disease of the liver. Then prepare for thyself a remedy, according to
the secrets of the (botanical) science, from the plant _pa-che-test_
and dates; mix them, and give in water” (Ebers).[154]

The famous medical papyrus roll in the Museum of Berlin is described by
M. Chabas in the chapter on “The Medicine of the Ancient Egyptians,”
in his work entitled _Mélanges Égyptologiques_. From this papyrus we
learn that plaisters, ointments, liniments, and friction were employed
as external remedies. Many of the names of the herbs and medicaments
employed cannot be translated, but are merely transcribed. We find
a number of recipes for tumours of the breast, for pimples, for
“dissipating divinely parts injured by bruises,” for destroying the
bites of vermin, for cuts (common salt the chief ingredient), etc. The
prescriptions seem very simple and brief.

Magical invocations were frequently employed in the treatment of
disease. Chabas thinks that one of the maladies so treated was
intestinal inflammation, with a feeling of heaviness, and hardness,
and a griping pain. He translates the diagnosis of such a malady: “His
belly is heavy, the mouth of his heart (_os ventriculi_) is sick, his
heart (his stomach) is burning, ... his clothes are heavy upon him.
Many clothes do not warm him; he is thirsty at night; the taste of his
heart is perverted, like a man who has eaten sycamore figs; his flesh
is deadened as a man who finds himself sick; if he goes to stool, his
bowels refuse to act. Pronounce on his case that he has a nest of
inflammation in his belly; the taste of his heart is sick, ... if he
raises himself, he is as a man who is unable to walk.” The text of the
papyrus gives the remedies to be used in such a case. “Apply to him the
means of curing inflammation by warmth; also the means of destroying
the inflammation in the belly.” The diagnosis and treatment here
described apply very well to what we term peritonitis; but Dr. Baas
suggests that gastric cancer may be indicated.

There is a medical papyrus in the Berlin Museum, which was discovered
in the necropolis of Memphis, and which is described by Brugsch[155]
as containing a quantity of recipes for the cure of many diseases,
including some of the nature of leprosy. There is also what the great
Egyptologists term “a simple, childish exposition of the construction
and mechanism of the body. The writing explained the number and use of
the numerous ‘tubes.’” The origin of part of this work is traced to the
time of the fifth king of the table of Abydos, though the composition
of the whole work is of the period of Ramses II. The text says of
the more ancient portion: “This is the beginning of the collection
of recipes for curing leprosy. It was discovered in a very ancient
papyrus, enclosed in a writing-case, under the feet (of a statue) of
the god Anubis, in the town of Sochem, at the time of the reign of his
majesty the defunct King Sapti. After his death, it was brought to the
majesty of the defunct King Senta, on account of its wonderful value.
And, behold, the book was placed again at the feet, and well secured by
the scribe of the temple, and the great physician, the wise Noferhotep.
And when this happened to the book at the going down of the sun, he
consecrated a meat, and drink, and incense offering to Isis, the lady;
to Hor, of Athribis; and the god Khonsoo-Thut, of Amkhit.”

Human brains are prescribed for a disease of the eyes in the Ebers
Papyrus. Pharmacy must have made considerable progress at the time this
work was written, as it contains two prescriptions for pills—one made
with honey for women, and one without it for men.

Chabas says that a severe discipline reigned in the schools of the
ancient Egyptians, and that the eloquence of the master was frequently
supplemented by the rod of his assistants. He gives in his translations
of papyri one of the exhortations to a pupil.[156]

“Oh, scribe,[157] give not thyself to idleness, or thou shalt be
smartly chastised; abandon not thy heart to pleasure, or thou wilt
let thy books slip out of thy hands; practise conversation; discuss
with those who are wiser than thyself; do the works of an elevated
man. Yes, when thou shalt be advanced in years, thou wilt find this to
be profitable. A scribe, skilful in every kind of work, will become
powerful. Neglect not thy books; do not take a dislike to them.”

Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson, in his _Manners and Customs of the
Egyptians_, gives a list of plants (from Pliny) which were known to
the Egyptians and used in medicine or the arts. Ladanum (_Cistus
ladaniferus_) was introduced into Egypt by the Ptolemies. Myrobalanum
(_Moringa aptera?_) produced a fruit from which an ointment was made.
Cypros (_Lawsonia spinosa et inermis_) was cooked in oil to make the
ointment called cyprus; the leaves were used to dye the hair. Elate
(Abies?), palma or spathe was of use in ointments. Oil of bitter
almonds. Olives and figs were much esteemed. The castor-oil plant
(_Ricinus communis_). A medicinal oil was extracted from what was
probably one of the nettle tribe (_Urtica pilulifera_). Tea (_Triticum
zea?_), olyra (_Holcus sorghum?_), and tiphe (_Triticum spelta_), were
used in decoctions; opium was extracted from _Papaver somniferum_.

Cnicus or atractylis (_Carthamum tinctorium?_) was a remedy against the
poison of scorpions and other reptiles. Pliny says: “Homer attributes
the glory of herbs to Egypt. He mentions many given to Helen by the
wife of the Egyptian king, particularly the Nepenthes, which caused
oblivion of sorrow.” Opium was well known to the ancients, as well
as various preparations of that drug. Sir J. Wilkinson thinks that
nepenthe was perhaps the _burt_ or _hasheesh_, a preparation of the
_Cannabis sativa_ or Indian hemp.

The Egyptians, says Ebers, thought that the kindly healing plants
sprung up from the blood and tears of the gods.[158]

Upon the ceilings and walls of the temples at Tentyra, Karnac, Luxor,
and other places, basso-relievos have been discovered representing
limbs that have been amputated with instruments very similar to those
which are employed in such operations in our own time. Such instruments
are also found in the hieroglyphics, and Larrey says[159] that there
are vestiges of other surgical operations which have been discovered
in Egyptian ruins which abundantly prove that the art of surgery was
practised with great skill in the land of the Pharaohs.

Mr. Flinders Petrie, excavating at the Pyramid of Medum, says of the
skeletons he discovered there: “The mutilations and diseases that come
to light are remarkable. One man had lost his left leg below the knee;
another had his hand cut off and put in the tomb; others seem to have
had bones excised, and placed separately with the body. In one case
acute and chronic inflammation and rheumatism of the back had united
most of the vertebræ into a solid mass down the inner side. In another
case there had been a rickety curvature of the spine. To find so
many peculiarities in only about fifteen skeletons which I collected
is strange. These are all in the Royal College of Surgeons now, for
study.”[160]

“Among the six hermetic books of medicine mentioned by Clement of
Alexandria, was one devoted to surgical instruments; otherwise the very
badly set fractures found in some of the mummies do little honour to
the Egyptian surgeons” (Ebers).

Flint instruments were always used for opening bodies, for circumcision
and other surgical operations. How far this was dictated by religious
respect for antiquity, or by sanitary reasons, cannot be said;
probably, however, the reverence for the ancient flint knife had much
to do with its retention.

Our word chemistry is derived from the name of Egypt, _Khem_ or
_Khemit_, the “Black Land,” meaning the rich, dark soil of the Nile
valley. The god Khem, also known as Min and Am, was the same as
the Pan of the Greeks and Priapus of the Romans. He presided over
productiveness and the kindly fruits of the earth. In this sense he was
also the god of curative herbs and simples, and so became associated
in the popular mind with the arts of healing.[161] Thus we obtain the
words chemist, chemistry, and alchemy. Plutarch says that the Greek
word χημία for Egypt, was bestowed on the land on account of the black
colour of its soil.

The Egyptians must have had considerable practical knowledge of
chemistry, or they could not have succeeded so well in the manufacture
of glass, in dyeing, and the use of mordants, etc. Metallurgy must have
been understood, as is evidenced by their process of gold manufactures
represented in several of the royal tombs. They made gold wire, and
excelled in the art of gilding. Their methods of embalming also exhibit
some chemical knowledge. Dr. Pettigrew says,[162] his friend Professor
Reuvens, of Leyden, examined a papyrus which contained upwards of one
hundred chemical and alchemical formulæ.

In the Ebers Papyrus there are several recipes for the preparation
of hair dye. “The earliest of all the recipes preserved to us is a
prescription for dyeing the hair.”[163]

Recipes for exterminating vermin and noxious creatures are found in the
same work.

In anatomy, physiology, surgery, therapeutics, and chemistry it is
evident that Egypt was far in advance of any other nation of the same
period of which we have authentic accounts.

The Persian kings were glad to employ the Egyptian physicians, whose
skill gained them high renown in the ancient world. Dr. Brugsch,
in his account of the Egyptians in the Persian service, gives a
translation of the inscriptions of Uza-hor-en-pi-ris, of the period
of the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses. “O ye gods who are in Saïs!
Remember all the good that has been done by the president of the
physicians, Uza-hor-en-pi-ris. In all that ye are willing to requite
him for all his benefits, establish for him a great name in this land
for ever. O Osiris! thou eternal one! The president of the physicians,
Uza-hor-en-pi-ris, throws his arms around thee, to guard thy image; do
for him all good according to what he has done, (as) the protector of
thy shrine for ever.”[164] The last words addressed to Osiris refer
to the form of the statue. The chief physician of Saïs is standing
upright, with his hands embracing a shrine which holds the mummy of
Osiris.

Whether the ancient Greeks derived their knowledge of medicine from
Egypt or from India has often been debated; the evidence seems to show
that Greece was indebted to India rather than to Egypt in this respect.

Mr. Flinders Petrie concludes “that Europe had an indigenous
civilization, as independent of Egypt and Babylonia as was the
indigenous Aryan civilization of India; that this civilization has
acquired arts independently, just as much as India has, and that Europe
has given to the East as much as it has borrowed from there.”[165]

Amongst the Egyptian fellahs some curious observances, says Mr.
Flinders Petrie, are connected with accidental deaths. “Fires of straw
are lighted, one month after the death, around the ground where the
body has lain; and where blood has been shed, iron nails are driven
into the ground, and a mixture of lentils, salt, etc., is poured out.
These look like offerings to appease spirits, and the fires seem as if
to drive away evil influences. Funeral offerings are still placed in
the tombs for the sustenance of the dead, just as they were thousands
of years ago.”[166]

Modern Egyptians, like the ancient, wear written charms against
sickness and disease. “Magical preparations of all sorts are frequently
used as remedies in illness, and in even serious cases the patient is
made to swallow pieces of paper inscribed with texts from the Koran,
and to try various similar absurd means, before a physician is applied
to.”[167]




CHAPTER II.

JEWISH MEDICINE.

 The Jews indebted to Egypt for their Learning.—The only Ancient
 People who discarded Demonology.—They had no Magic of their
 own.—Phylacteries.—Circumcision.—Sanitary Laws.—Diseases in
 the Bible.—The Essenes.—Surgery in the Talmud.—Alexandrian
 Philosophy.—Jewish Services to Mediæval Medicine.—The Phœnicians.


That division of the Hebrew peoples which afterwards developed into
Israel, left its home in the extreme south of Palestine some fifteen
centuries before the Christian era to occupy the pasture lands of
Goshen, in the territory of the Pharaohs, where they continued to
retain their nomadic habits, their ancient language and patriarchal
institutions. In process of time, however, the Egyptian sovereigns
began to deal severely with their self-invited guests; they were forced
to labour on the public works of Goshen; and though bitterly resenting
this attempt to destroy their identity and reduce them to mere slavery,
the proud and noble race was powerless to resist, and continued to
labour on in despair until a deliverer arose in Moses, who led them out
of Egypt to the land of Palestine which they had originally left. Moses
was a pupil of the Egyptian priests, versed in all their wisdom, and
imbued with the loftiest sentiments of the religion of Egypt. We shall
expect to find in the medicine of the Jews abundant traces of their
long residence in the land of the Pharaohs. Our sources for the history
of the healing art and the theory of disease which obtained with the
people of Israel are two—the Bible and the Talmud. Therein we shall see
the influences, both external and internal, which made Jewish medicine
what it was; and we shall be astonished, on comparing the theory of
disease with that of all the other nations and peoples of the earth, to
find that it stands by itself, is absolutely unique in its loftiness of
idea, its absolute freedom from the absurd and degrading superstitions
of the great and civilized nations amongst which they dwelt or by
which they were surrounded. When we reflect on the religions of Egypt,
Assyria, and Chaldæa, and compare their many gods with the one God of
the Jews, their demonology, sorcery, and witchcraft with the pure and
elevated faith of these nomads of the Sinaitic Peninsula, and remember
that in all the earth at that time there was no other nation which
had formulated such a pure theism, no other people which had broken
away from the degrading and corrupting demonology which possessed the
whole earth, we are compelled to recognise in God’s ancient people
the Jews the evidence of a teaching totally unlike anything which had
preceded it. If the Bible, the Talmud, and the Koran are all three
merely specimens of ancient literature, how comes it that the Bible
is so infinitely superior, not only in its noble monotheism, but in
its remarkable freedom from so many of the superstitions which, as
we have seen, were everywhere intermixed with the noblest religious
systems and the most advanced civilizations? Magic in the Bible is
everywhere passed by with contempt. Whatever may be the precise date of
the Psalms, they must have been written when all nations were sunk in
the grossest superstition, and had resort to magical practices on the
slightest pretence; yet there is a total absence of all superstition in
the Psalms. Granting that the Book of Ecclesiastes is a mere piece of
cynical philosophy, it contains no evidence of superstitious belief.
The more ancient is a literature, the greater is the certainty that it
will contain some reference to superstitious usages; yet how gloriously
the oldest books of the Bible shine in their freedom from contamination
with the demon-worship and conjuring arts of the nations surrounding
the children of Israel.

As the author of the learned article on “Medicine” in Smith’s
_Dictionary of the Bible_ says: “But if we admit Egyptian learning as
an ingredient, we should also notice how far exalted above it is the
standard of the whole Jewish legislative fabric, in its exemption from
the blemishes of sorcery and juggling pretences. The priest, who had
to pronounce on the cure, used no means to advance it, and the whole
regulations prescribed exclude the notion of trafficking in popular
superstition. We have no occult practices reserved in the hands of
the sacred caste. It is God alone who doeth great things—working by
the wand of Moses or the brazen serpent; but the very mention of such
instruments is such as to expel all pretence of mysterious virtues in
the things themselves.” It is always God alone who is the healer: “I
am the Lord that healeth thee” (Exod. xv. 26); “Heal me, O Lord, and I
shall be healed” (Jer. xvii. 14); “For I will restore health unto thee,
and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord” (Jer. xxx. 17);
“Who healeth all thy diseases” (Ps. ciii. 3); “He healeth the broken in
heart, and bindeth up their wounds” (Ps. cxlvii. 3); “The Lord bindeth
up the breach of His people, and healeth the stroke of their wound”
(Isa. xxx. 26).

The priestly caste had no monopoly of the healing art; it might
be practised by any one who was competent to afford medical aid.
Physicians are mentioned in several passages.

Although the Hebrews had no magic of their own, and notwithstanding
the stern severity with which it was prohibited in their law, there
would naturally be many who transgressed their law and imported the
superstitious practices from the surrounding peoples.

The teraphim of Laban which were stolen by Rachel[168] is the earliest
example in the Bible of magical instruments. It seems that these
objects were a kind of idols in the shape of a human figure; their use
was condemned by the prophets, but they were for ages used in popular
worship, both domestic and public. Hosea says:[169] “The children of
Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and
without a sacrifice, and without an image, and without an ephod, and
_without_ teraphim.” In this passage the teraphim and ephod are classed
with the sacrifice, as though equally essential for worship. Some
students think that the teraphim were the Kabeiri gods;[170] whatever
they were, they were worshipped or used superstitiously by Micah, by
the Danites, and others.[171] They were used magically for the purpose
of obtaining oracular answers, and were associated with the practice of
divination.[172]

The phylacteries of the Jews were charms or amulets in writing. They
were believed to avert all evils, but were especially useful in driving
away demons. They put faith, also, in precious stones. To this day one
may see at the door of every Jewish house the mezûza—a scrap of sacred
writing—affixed diagonally on the right doorpost, enclosed in a metal
case. The texts contained are inscribed on parchment, and the words
are from Deuteronomy vi. 4-9; xi. 13-21. In the Targum on Canticles
viii. 3, we learn that the phylactery and mezûza were supposed to
keep off hurtful demons. This is merely the corruption of a perfectly
innocent idea; it is an example of the way in which harmless things
become degraded to superstitious uses. The scapular of little squares
of brown cloth worn by Catholics originally meant no more than the
investiture, in a secret and unassuming manner, with the habit of the
Carmelite order, and allowed pious persons living “in the world” to
feel that they were affiliated to a famous and saintly community. When
the Catholic wore it, he knew that he assumed the badge of the Blessed
Virgin; there was no more in it than that. Amongst the ignorant and
superstitious it is now commonly believed that the wearer is protected
from death by fire and drowning, and that Our Lady will liberate him
from purgatory on the first Saturday after his arrival there.

“To the mind of the Israelite,” says Mr. Tylor, “death and pestilence
took the personal form of the destroying angel who smote the
doomed.”[173]

God is plainly declared, in Exodus xv. 26, to send diseases upon men
as a punishment for the breach of His commandments, and this has been
adduced to show that the Jews traced their maladies to the anger of
an offended Deity; and thus it has been argued that their etiology
of disease was not higher than that of the other nations. But this
argument is unfair. The Mosaic law was to a great extent a sanitary
code, and even in the light of modern science we are compelled to
admire the wisdom of the laws which have for so many centuries made the
Jews the healthiest and most macrobiotic of peoples.

The rite of circumcision was not peculiar to the Jews; and just as
baptism was an initiatory rite borrowed from another religion, yet made
distinctive of Christianity, so circumcision has come to be considered
a peculiarly Jewish practice. It may have been with the Israelites a
protest against the phallus worship which is of such remote antiquity,
and which was the foundation of the myth of Osiris. Wunderbar[174]
asserts that it distinctly contributed to increase the fruitfulness
of the race and to check inordinate desires in the individual. There
are excellent surgical reasons for both these suppositions, in
addition to which we may add that it contributed to cleanliness and
prevented irritation. Wunderbar, moreover, seems to have established
his statement that after circumcision there is less probability of the
absorption of syphilitic virus, and he has instanced the fact that
such specific disease is less frequent with Jewish than with Christian
populations.[175]

“Circumcision,” says Pickering, speaking of the Polynesian practice,
“was now explained; and various other customs, which had previously
appeared unaccountable, were found to rest on physical causes, having
been extended abroad by the process of imitation.”[176]

The same writer states that the practice is “common to the ancient
inhabitants of the Thebaid, and also to the modern Abyssinians and
their neighbours in the South.”[177]

Ewald[178] says that circumcision was practised by various Arabian
tribes, in Africa, amongst Ethiopic Christians and the negroes of the
Congo. It was also practised on girls by Lydian, Arabian, and African
tribes, as Philo and Strabo inform us. Ewald considers it originated
as an offering of one’s own flesh and blood in sacrifice to God, and
may have been considered as a substitute for the whole body of a human
being.

Circumcision is practised amongst Australian savages on the Murray
River, as also another incredible ceremonial, as Lubbock terms it.[179]

Castration is hinted at in Matthew xix. 12 as an operation well
understood.

In hot climates extra precautions for cleanliness have to be adopted
beyond those which would amply suffice in northern lands. Captain
Burton says:[180]—

However much the bath may be used, the body-pile and hair of the
armpits, etc., if submitted to a microscope, will show more or less
sordes adherent. The axilla hair is plucked, because if shaved the
growing pile causes itching, and the depilatories are held to be
deleterious.

Sometimes Syrian incense or fir-gum, imported from Scio, is melted and
allowed to cool in the form of a pledget. This is passed over the face,
and all the down adhering to it is pulled up by the roots. He adds that
many Anglo-Indians adopt the same precautions.

Ewald, referring to the laws concerning women, says:[181] “The monthly
period of the woman brought with it the second grade of uncleanness,
which lasted the space of seven days, but without rendering necessary
the use of specially prepared water. Everything on which the woman sat
or lay during this time, and every one who touched such things or her,
incurred the uncleanness of the first grade.”

We find the demon-theory of disease in force in the time of Josephus.
He says:[182]—

“Now within this place there grew a sort of rue, that deserves our
wonder on account of its largeness, for it was no way inferior to any
fig-tree whatsoever, either in height or in thickness; and the report
is that it had lasted ever since the time of Herod, and would probably
have lasted much longer had it not been cut down by those Jews who
took possession of the place afterward; but still in that valley which
encompasses the city on the north side, there is a certain place called
Baaras, which produces a root of the same name with itself; its colour
is like to that of flame, and towards evening it sends out a certain
ray like lightning; it is not easily taken by such as would do it, but
recedes from their hands; nor will yield itself to be taken quietly,
until either οὖρον γυναικὸς ἢ τὸ ἔμμηνον αἵμα be poured upon it; nay,
even then it is certain death to those that touch it, unless any one
take and hang the root itself down from his hand, and so carry it away.
It may also be taken another way, without danger, which is this: they
dig a trench quite round about it, till the hidden part of the root be
very small; they then tie a dog to it, and when the dog tries hard to
follow him that tied him, this root is easily plucked up, but the dog
dies immediately, as if it were instead of the man that would take the
plant away; nor after this need any one be afraid of taking it into
their hands. Yet, after all this pains in getting, it is only valuable
on account of one virtue it hath—that if it be only brought to sick
persons, it quickly drives away those called Demons, which are no other
than the spirits of the wicked, that enter into men that are alive and
kill them, unless they can obtain some help against them.”

If we may consider Josephus as a fair type of the learned and liberally
educated men of his time, we are compelled to admit that the theory
of disease held by the Hebrews of the period was not much, if at all,
in advance of the rest of the world. It was undoubtedly largely the
demoniacal theory of sickness. In the _Antiquities of the Jews_[183]
Josephus, in his description of the sagacity and wisdom of Solomon,
says: “God also enabled him to learn the skill that expels demons,
which is a science useful and sanative to men. He composed such
incantations also by which distempers are alleviated. And he left
behind him the manner of using exorcisms, by which they drive away
demons so that they never return; and this method of cure is of great
force unto this day; for I have seen a certain man of my own country,
whose name was Eleazar, releasing people that were demoniacal.” He goes
on to describe the process of extracting the demon from the sick man
through his nostrils.

So again, in telling the story of Saul’s possession by the evil spirit
from the Lord, he says:[184] “The physicians could find no other remedy
but this—that if any person could charm those passions by singing and
playing upon the harp, they advised them to inquire for such a one.” He
seems to imply that David cured Saul by an incantation; and Spanheim,
commenting upon the story, says that the Greeks had such singers of
hymns, and that usually children or youths were picked out for that
service, and that they were called singers to the harp.[185]

Whether David merely influenced Saul in the natural and touching way so
beautifully described by Robert Browning in his poem “Saul,” we must
bear in mind that an “incantation” was precisely of the character of
the Bible story, and that the demon theory of Saul’s malady is plainly
stated.[186]

Herzog[187] enumerates the following as the diseases of the Bible:—1.
_Fever and ague_ (Lev. xxvi. 16). 2. _Dysentery_ (Acts xxviii. 8),
with, probably, _prolapsus ani_, as in Jehoram’s case (2 Chron. xxi.
15, 19). 3. _Inflammation of the eyes_, due to heat, night dews,
sea breeze, flying sand, injuries, etc. (Lev. xix. 14; Deut. xxvii.
18; Matt. xii. 22, etc.). 4. _Congenital blindness_ (John ix. 1).
5. _Disease of the liver_. 6. _Hypochondria_. 7. _Hysteria_. 8.
_Rheumatism and gout_ (John v. 2, 3). 9. _Consumption_, a general term,
including hectic, typhoid, and other fevers (Lev. xxvi. 16; Deut.
xxviii. 22, etc.). 10. _Phthisis_ (?), indicated by leanness (Isa. x.
16). 11. _Atrophy of muscles_, “withered hand,” being due either to
rheumatism, plugging up of the main artery of the limb, or paralysis
of the principal nerve, etc. (Matt. xii. 10; 1 Kings xiii. 4-6, etc.).
12. _Fevers_ in general (Matt. viii. 14, etc.). 13. _Pestilence_
(Deut. xxxii. 24). 14. _Oriental pest_, the so-called “bubonenpest,”
characterised by swellings in the groins, armpits, etc.; a very fatal
disorder (Lev. xxvi. 25; Deut. xxviii. 21, 27, 60, etc.). 15. _Boils_
(2 Kings xx. 7, etc.). 16. _Sunstroke_ (2 Kings iv. 19, etc.). 17.
_Gonorrhœa_ (Lev. xv. 2). 18. _Metrorrhagia_, or uterine hemorrhage
(Lev. xv. 25; Luke viii. 43, etc.). 19. _Sterility_ (Gen. xx. 18,
etc.). 20. _Asa’s foot disease_, either œdema or gout (2 Chron. xvi.
12). 21. _Elephantiasis_ (?) (Job ii. 7). 22. _Dropsy_ (Luke xiv. 2).
23. _Cancer_ (2 Tim. ii. 17). 24. _Worms_; may have been phthiriasis
(lice) (2 Macc. ix. 5-9). 25. _Leprosy_. 26. _Itch_ and other skin
diseases (Deut xxviii. 27). 27. _Apoplexy_ (1 Sam. xxv. 37, etc.).
28. _Lethargy_ (Gen. ii. 21; 1 Sam. xxvi. 12). 29. _Paralysis_, palsy
(Matt. iv. 24; Acts iii. 2, etc.). 30. _Epilepsy_, the so-called
“possession of devils” (Matt. iv. 24, etc.). 31. _Melancholia_, madness
(Deut. xxviii. 28, etc.). 32. _Nervous exhaustion_ (1 Tim. v. 23). 33.
_Miscarriage_ (Exod. xxi. 22). 34. “_Boils and blains_,” erysipelatous
(Exod. ix. 9). 35. _Gangrene and mortification_ (2 Tim. ii. 17). 36.
_Poisoning by arrows_ (Job vi. 4). _Poisoning from snake-bite_ (Deut.
xxxii. 24). 37. _Scorpions and centipedes_ (Rev. ix. 5, 10). 38. _Old
age_, as described in Eccles. xii. I am inclined to add to this list
_Syphilis_, which seems to me to be clearly indicated by several verses
in Proverbs xii., in the warnings against the strange woman, _e.g._
verses 22, 23, 26, and 27.

The law forbade a Levite who was blind to act as a physician. Anatomy
and pathology were not understood, as it was considered pollution even
to touch the dead.

The surgical instruments of the Bible are the sharp stone or flint
knives with which circumcision was performed, and the awl with which a
servant’s ear was bored by his master (Exod. iv. 25; Josh. v. 2; Exod.
xxi. 6). Roller bandages are referred to for fractures (Ezek. xxx. 21).
Job used a scraper when he was smitten with boils (Job ii. 8). The
materia medica of the Bible is meagre. A poultice of figs—a favourite
remedy in ancient times—is ordered in 2 Kings xx. 7.

Fish galls (Tobit xi. 4-13) and fasting saliva are used (Mark viii. 23).

The only regular prescription mentioned is that in Exodus xxx. 23-25.

Midwives were regularly employed to assist Hebrew mothers.

The “bearing stool” was employed.

There is a very beautiful figurative description of the disease of old
age or senile decay given by Solomon in the Book of Ecclesiastes:—

“Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil
days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have
no pleasure in them; while the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the
stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: in the
day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men
shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and
those that look out of the windows be darkened, and the doors shall
be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and
he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of
musick shall be brought low; also _when_ they shall be afraid of _that
which is_ high, and fears _shall be_ in the way, and the almond tree
shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall
fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about
the streets: or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be
broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken
at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and
the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”

Dr. Mead, in his treatise on the diseases of old age,[188] thus
explains the curious figurative phrases. By the darkening of the sun,
moon, and stars, he says we are to understand the obscuration of the
mental faculties, which is so common in advanced life. The clouds
returning after rain symbolise the cares and troubles which oppress
the aged; especially when the vigour of the mind is lessened, so that
they cannot cast them off. From the mind we pass to the body: “the
keepers of the house shall tremble,” etc. That is to say, the limbs
which support the body grow feeble and relaxed, and are incapable of
defending us against injuries. The grinders are the molar teeth. The
failing sight is compared to the darkness which meets those who look
out of the windows. By diminished appetite the mouth, which is the
door of the body, is less frequently opened than in youth. The sound
of the grinding of the teeth is low, because old people have, in the
absence of them, to eat with their gums. The rising up at the voice
of the bird signifies the short and interrupted sleep of the aged. By
the daughters of music we are to understand the ears, which no longer
administer to our pleasure in conveying harmonious sounds. The sense
of feeling is diminished, and the aged are fearful of stumbling in the
way. The early flowers of spring shall flourish in vain. The phrase,
the grasshopper shall become a burden, according to Dr. Mead, is the
modest Hebrew mode of describing the effects of scrotal rupture. He
says the grasshopper is made up chiefly of belly, and when full of eggs
bears some resemblance to a scrotum smitten by a rupture. “Desire shall
be lost” is like Ovid’s _Turpe senilis amor_, and does not refer to
appetite for food. The loosened silver cord is the vertebral column;
the medulla oblongata is of a silver or whitish colour. The golden
bowl expresses the dignity of the head, from which in old age come
defluxions to the nose, eyes, and mouth. Incontinence of urine is a
common trouble of the aged, well expressed by the figure of the pitcher
broken at the fountain; and the wheel at the cistern, to those who knew
nothing of the circulation of the blood, fairly describes the failing
heart, no longer capable of propelling the stream of life through the
vessels.

Referring to the words, “The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the
moon by night” (Psalm cxxi. 6), Captain Burton says[189] that he has
seen a hale and hearty Arab, after sitting an hour in the moonlight,
look like a man fresh from a sick-bed; and he knew an Englishman in
India whose face was temporarily paralysed by sleeping with it exposed
to the moon.

The captivity at Babylon brought the Jews into contact with a nobler
and very high civilization. In many ways there is no doubt that Jewish
thought was greatly developed and enlarged by association with the
peoples of Babylonia and Assyria. What precise influences the Jews
became subject to in this captivity we have not the means to determine;
but the fact that the Greek physician Democedes visited the court of
Darius, proves that Eastern lands had in some measure fallen under
the influence of Greek thought, about the time of Ezra. The Book of
Ecclesiasticus is supposed to belong to the period of the Ptolemies,
and in that work we find practitioners of medicine held in high
esteem. “Honour a physician with the honour due unto him for the uses
which ye may have of him; for the Lord hath created him.... The skill
of the physician shall lift up his head; and in the sight of great men
he shall be in admiration. The Lord hath created medicines out of the
earth; and he that is wise will not abhor them.... Then give place to
the physician, for the Lord hath created him; let him not go from thee,
for thou hast need of him.”[190]

A very interesting but mysterious sect of the Jews was the ESSENES
(B.C. 150). Our knowledge of this ancient community is chiefly derived
from Josephus,[191] who says that they studied the ancient writers
principally with regard to those things useful to the body and the
soul, that they thus acquired knowledge of remedies for diseases, and
learned the virtues of plants, stones, and metals. Another name for the
Essenes was the Therapeutists, or the Healers.[192]

They lived somewhat after the fashion of monks, and had a novitiate of
three years. Some of their principles and rules suggest a connection
with Pythagorism and Zoroastrianism. De Quincey finds in Essenism
a saintly scheme of Ethics, a “Christianity before Christ, and
consequently without Christ.”[193] Recent scholarship, says Professor
Masson, will not accept his conclusions concerning this remarkable
secret society.[194]

The surgery of the Talmud includes a knowledge of dislocations of the
thigh, contusions of the head, perforation of the lungs and other
organs, injuries of the spinal cord and trachea, and fractures of the
ribs. Polypus of the nose was considered to be a punishment for past
sins. In sciatica the patient is advised to rub the hip sixty times
with meat-broth. Bleeding was performed by mechanics or barbers.

The pathology of the Talmud ascribes diseases to a constitutional vice,
to evil influences acting on the body from without, or to the effect of
magic.

Jaundice is recognised as arising from retention of the bile,
dropsy from suppression of the urine. The Talmudists divided dropsy
into anasarca, ascites, and tympanites. Rupture and atrophy of the
kidneys were held to be always fatal. Hydatids of the liver were more
favourably considered. Suppuration of the spinal cord, induration of
the lungs, etc., are incurable. Dr. Baas[195] says that these are
“views which may have been based on the dissection of [dead] animals,
and may be considered the germs of pathological anatomy.” Some critical
symptoms are sweating, sneezing, defecation, and dreams, which promise
a favourable termination of the disease.

Natural remedies, both external and internal, were employed. Magic
was also Talmudic. Dispensations were given by the Rabbis to permit
sick persons to eat prohibited food. Onions were prescribed for worms;
wine and pepper for stomach disorders; goat’s milk for difficulty of
breathing; emetics in nausea; a mixture of gum and alum for menorrhagia
(not a bad prescription); a dog’s liver was ordered for the bite of a
mad dog. Many drugs, such as assafœtida, are evidently adopted from
Greek medicine. The dissection of the bodies of animals provided the
Talmudists with their anatomy. It is, however, recorded that Rabbi
Ishmael, at the close of the first century, made a skeleton by boiling
of the body of a prostitute. We find that dissection in the interests
of science was permitted by the Talmud. The Rabbis counted 252 bones in
the human skeleton.

It was known that the spinal cord emerges from the foramen magnum, and
terminates in the cauda equina. The anatomy of the uterus was well
understood. A very curious point in their anatomy was the assumption of
the existence of a fabulous bone, called “Luz,” which they held to be
the nucleus of the resurrection of the body.[196]

(The Arabians call this bone “Aldabaran.”)

They discovered that the removal of the spleen is not necessarily fatal.

According to the Talmudists, the elementary bodies are earth, air,
fire, and water. Pregnancy, they held, lasts 270 to 273 days (280 days
is the modern calculation), and that it cannot be determined before the
fourth month.

Alexandrian philosophic thought received a new impulse in consequence
of the conciliatory policy which the Ptolemies pursued towards the
Jews. Under Soter they were encouraged to settle in Alexandria, and
soon their numbers became very great. Egypt at one time contained
altogether some 200,000 Jews. Alexandria became for several centuries
the centre of Jewish thought and learning. But the learning of the
Rabbis became a shallow pedantry in the course of time, and their
faith in the inspiration of their scriptures ultimately degenerated
into a Cabalism, which in its turn lent itself to jugglery and
magic-mongering, and infected the medicine of the Roman world, just as
the healing art had emancipated itself from superstition, theurgy, and
philosophical sophistries.

Kingsley has told us how this Jewish magic arose.[197] “If each word
[of the Scriptures] had a mysterious value, why not each letter? And
how could they set limits to that mysterious value? Might not these
words, even rearrangements of the letters of them, be useful in
protecting them against the sorceries of the heathen, in driving away
these evil spirits, or evoking those good spirits who, though seldom
mentioned in their early records, had, after their return from Babylon,
begun to form an important part of their unseen world?”

Jewish Cabalism formed itself into a system at Alexandria. It was
there, as Kingsley goes on to say, that the Jews learnt to become
the magic-mongers which Claudius had to expel from Rome as pests to
rational and moral society.

According to the Jewish doctors, three angels preside over the art of
medicine. Their names, according to Rabbi Elias, are Senoi, Sansenoi,
and Sanmangelof.[198]

In the Middle Ages the Jews rendered the greatest services to the
healing art, and had a large share in the scientific work connected
with the Arab domination in Spain. The great names of MOSES MAIMONIDES
and IBN EZRA attest the dignity of Jewish intellectual life in the Dark
Ages. The Golden Age of the modern Jews, as Milman[199] designates it,
begins with the Caliphs and ends with Maimonides. The Hebrew literature
was eminently acceptable to the kindred taste of the Saracens, and the
sympathy between Arab and Jewish practitioners and students of medicine
was fraught with the greatest benefit to the healing art. The Golden
Age of the Jews was at its height in the time of Charlemagne, when
kings could not write their names. Their intelligence and education
fitted them to become the physicians and the ministers of nobles and
monarchs. During the reign of Louis the Debonnaire the Jews were
all-powerful at his court. His confidential adviser was the Jewish
physician Zedekiah, who was a profound adept in magic. In an age when
monkish historians could relate “with awe-struck sincerity,” as Milman
describes it,[200] the tales of his swallowing a cartload of hay,
horses and all, it is not difficult to understand that an acquaintance
with the best knowledge of his time would account for the estimation
in which a man of science was held. Maimonides lived at the court of
the Sultan of Egypt as the royal physician, in the highest estimation.

The Phœnicians were devoted to phallic-worship. The instrument of
procreative power was the chief symbol of their religion. Astarte was
their great goddess. Baal-Zebub, the Beelzebub of the Bible, was their
god of medicine, and the arbiter of health and disease. The Cabiri,
or Corybantes, considered by some authorities to be identical with
the Titans, by others with the sons of Noah, were considered as the
discoverers of the properties of the medicinal herbs, and the teachers
of the art of healing to mortals.[201]




CHAPTER III.

THE MEDICINE OF CHALDÆA, BABYLONIA, AND ASSYRIA.

 The Ancient Religion of Accadia akin to Shamanism.—Demon Theory of
 Disease in Chaldæan Medicine.—Chaldæan Magic.—Medical Ignorance of the
 Babylonians.—Assyrian Disease-Demons.—Charms.—Origin of the Sabbath.


Chaldæa was probably only second to Egypt in the antiquity of its
civilization. The founders of the Babylonian and Assyrian empires were
a Semitic tribe, and were the first people who worked in metals, and
their knowledge of astronomy proves them to have been possessed of
some amount of scientific attainments. Their practice of medicine was
inextricably mixed with conjurations of spirits, magic, and astrology.

The name now given to the primitive inhabitants of Babylon is
Accadians. Sayce considers them to have been the earliest civilizers of
Eastern Asia. From the Accadians, he thinks the Assyrians, Phœnicians,
and Greeks derived their knowledge of philosophy and the arts. Their
libraries existed seventeen centuries B.C.

The ancient religion of Accad was very similar to the Shamanism
professed by Siberian and Samoyed tribes at the present time. There was
believed to be a spirit in every object. Good or bad spirits swarmed
in the world, and there was scarcely anything that could be done which
might not risk demoniacal possession. These good and bad spirits were
controlled by priests and sorcerers. All diseases were caused by evil
spirits, and the bulls and other creatures which guarded the entrance
to houses were there to protect them from their power. The priests
were magicians. There were at one period of the development of the
Babylonian mythology three hundred spirits of heaven and six hundred
spirits of earth; the most dreadful of these latter were the “seven
spirits,” who were born without father and mother, and brought plague
and evil on the earth. Magic formulæ for warding off the attacks of
demons were commonly used, and charms and talismans were extensively
employed. The phylacteries of the Jews were talismans, and were of
Accadian origin. The sorcerer bound his charm, “knotted with seven
knots, round the limbs of the sick man, and this, with the further
application of holy water, would, it was believed, infallibly produce a
cure; while the same result might be brought about by fixing a sentence
out of a good book on the sufferer’s head as he lay in bed.”[202]

Accadian literature, Mr. George Smith tells us, is rich in collections
of charms and formulæ of exorcism belonging to the very earliest period
of Babylonian history. There are magic formulæ of all kinds, some to
ward off sorcery, some to bewitch other persons.

The following is a specimen of the exorcisms used to drive away evil
spirits, and to cure the diseases which were believed to be caused by
their agency:—

“The noxious god, the noxious spirit of the neck, the spirit of the
desert, the spirit of the mountain, the spirit of the sea, the spirit
of the morass, the noxious cherub of the city, this noxious wind which
seizes the body (and) the health of the body: O, spirit of heaven,
remember! O, spirit of earth, remember!

“The burning spirit of the neck which seizes the man, the burning
spirit which seizes the man, the spirit which works evil, the creation
of the evil spirit: O, spirit of heaven, remember! O, spirit of earth,
remember!

“Wasting, want of health, the evil spirit of the ulcer, spreading
quinsey of the gullet, the violent ulcer, the noxious ulcer: O, spirit
of heaven, remember! O, spirit of earth, remember!

“Sickness of the entrails, sickness of the heart, the palpitation of a
sick heart, sickness of bile, sickness of the head, noxious colic, the
_agitation_ of terror, flatulency of the entrails, noxious illness,
lingering sickness, nightmare: O, spirit of heaven, remember! O, spirit
of earth, remember!”[203]

In the great magic collection of invocations copied by the order of
Asurbanipal, we have a long litany on the “Spirit of Fever”; the lords
and ladies of the earth, stars, the light of life, the spirit of Hurki
and his talismanic ship, the spirit of Utu, umpire of the gods, and
many others are implored to “conjure it.”[204]

Professor Lenormant considers that the idea of punishment of sin by
means of disease was a dogma of a later school of Chaldæan thought.
The old religion of spirits upon which Chaldæan magic was originally
founded was independently the doctrine of the priests of magic, so
that there were two sets of priests in later Chaldæan civilization—the
old class who composed incantations to the spirits who fought with
and replaced the disease-demons, and the theological priests who urged
repentance for sin as the only means of the cure of disease.[205]

In the Accadian philosophy there was in everything a dualism of
spirits. Innumerable hosts of them caused all the phenomena of nature,
from the movements of the stars to the life and death, the health
and disease of every human being. This dualism was as marked as that
of the religion of Zoroaster; everywhere and in everything the good
spirits fought against the evil ones, discord prevailed throughout the
universe; and on this conception rested the whole theory of sacred
magic. Man’s only help against the attacks of bad spirits, and the
plagues and diseases which they brought upon him, lay in the invocation
of good spirits by means of priests, sacred rites, talismans, and
charms. These could put to flight the demons by helping the good
spirits in their constant warfare with them. Magic therefore became a
system elaborated with scientific exactness, and a vast pantheon of
gods became necessary. Hea was the great god of conjurational magic;
he was the supreme protector of men and of nature in the war between
good and evil. When neither word, nor rite, nor talisman, nor help
of the other divinities of heaven availed to help mankind, Hea was
all-powerful; and this was because, as Lenormant says,[206] Hea was
alone acquainted with the awful power of the supreme name. “Before this
name everything bows in heaven and in earth and in Hades, and it alone
can conquer the _Maskim_ (a species of evil demon), and stop their
ravages. The gods themselves are enthralled by this name, and render it
obedience.”

Images of demons were used by the Chaldæans as talismans against the
attacks of demons. In a magical hymn to the sun against sorcery and
witchcraft, and their influence on the worshipper, the sun is reminded
that the images of the bad spirits have been shut up in heaps of corn.
The invocation concludes:—

“May the great gods, who have created me, take my hand! Thou who curest
my face, direct my hand, direct it, lord, light of the universe,
Sun.”[207]

In a hymn composed for the cure of some disease, the priest, addressing
the god, speaks of the invalid in the third person:—

    “As for me, the lord has sent me, the great lord, Hea, has sent me.———
    Thou, at thy coming, cure the race of man, cause a ray of health to
       shine upon him, cure his disease.
    The man, son of his god, is burdened with the load of his omissions
       and transgressions.
    His feet and his hands suffer cruelly, he is painfully exhausted by
       the disease.
    Sun, at the raising of my hands, come at the call, eat his food,
       absorb his victim, turn his weakness into strength.”[208]

In the “War of the Seven Wicked Spirits against the Moon,” we have an
incantation which was destined to cure the king of a disease caused by
the wicked spirits.[209]

In the Chaldæan creed all diseases were the work of demons. This is
why Herodotus found no physicians in Babylon and Assyria. There was
no science of medicine; “it was simply a branch of magic, and was
practised by incantations, exorcism, the use of philters and enchanted
drinks.”[210]

Of course the priests made it their business to compound their drinks
of such drugs as they had discovered to possess therapeutic virtue. In
ancient times magic and medicine were thus closely united. It could
not have been always faith alone which cured the patient, but faith
plus a little poppy juice would work wonders in many cases. It became
therefore greatly to the interest of the priests and magicians to learn
the properties of herbs, and the value of the juices and extracts of
plants. Out of evil, therefore, mankind reaped this great and valuable
knowledge. The two gravest and most fatal diseases with which the
Chaldæans were acquainted, says M. Lenormant,[211] were the plague and
fever, the _Namtar_ and the _Idpa_. Naturally they were represented as
two demons, the strongest and most formidable who afflict mankind. An
old fragment says:—

  The execrable _Idpa_ acts upon the head of man,
  The malevolent _Namtar_ upon the life of man,
  The malevolent _Utug_ upon the forehead of man,
  The malevolent _Alal_ upon the chest of man,
  The malevolent _Gigim_ upon the bowels of man,
  The malevolent _Telal_ upon the hand of man.[212]

The use of magic knots as a cure for diseases was firmly believed in by
the ancient Chaldees. M. Lenormant[213] gives a translation of one of
the formulæ supposed to have been used against diseases of the head.

    Knot on the right and arrange flat in regular bands, on the left a
        woman’s diadem;
    divide it twice in seven little bands; ...
    gird the head of the invalid with it;
    gird the forehead of the invalid with it;
    gird the seat of life with it;
    gird his hands and his feet;
    seat him on his bed;
    pour on him enchanted waters.
    Let the disease of his head be carried away into the heavens like
        a violent wind; ...
    may the earth swallow it up like passing waters!

Sir Henry Rawlinson has discovered that there were three classes
of Chaldæan doctors, exactly in accordance with the enumeration of
the prophet Daniel. These were the _Khartumim_, or conjurors, the
_Chakamim_, or physicians, and the _Asaphim_, or theosophists (see
Daniel ii. 2; v. ii).

The Babylonian doctrine of disease was that the hosts of evil spirits
in the air entered man’s body, and could only be expelled by the
incantations of the exorcist. These disease-demons were addressed as
“the noxious neck spirit,” “the burning spirit of the entrails which
devours the man.” Headache was caused by evil spirits which were
commanded by the charmer to fly away “like grasshoppers” into the
sky.[214]

Herodotus says of the Babylonians: “The following custom seems to me
the wisest of their institutions. They have no physicians, but when
a man is ill, they lay him in the public square, and the passers-by
come up to him, and if they have ever had his disease themselves, or
have known any one who has suffered from it, they give him advice,
recommending him to do whatever they found good in their own case, or
in the case known to them; and no one is allowed to pass the sick man
in silence without asking him what his ailment is.”[215]

A Babylonian exorcism of disease-demons has been found in the following
terms: the translation is by Prof. Sayce.[216]

“On the sick man, by means of sacrifice, may perfect health shine like
bronze; may the sun-god give this man life; may Merodach, the eldest
son of the deep, give him strength, prosperity, and health; may the
king of heaven preserve, may the king of earth preserve.”

A curse against a sorcerer declares that “by written spells he shall
not be delivered.”

The elementary spirits were supposed to be seven baleful winds, which
were considered general causes of disease. One of the formulæ of
exorcising these dreadful seven is translated by Mr. Smith from a great
collection of hymns to the gods which was compiled B.C. 2000.

    “Seven (are) they, seven (are) they.
    In the abyss of the deep seven (are) they.
    In the brightness of heaven seven (are) they.
    In the abyss of the deep in a palace (was) their growth.
    Male they (are) not, female they (are) not.
    Moreover the deep (is) their pathway.
    Wife they have not, child is not born to them.
    Law (and) kindness know they not.
    Prayer and supplication hear they not.
    (Among) the thorns of the mountain (was) their growth.
    To Hea (the god of the sea) (are) they hostile.
    The throne-bearers of the gods (are) they.
    Disturbing the watercourse in the canal are they set.
    Wicked (are) they, wicked (are) they.
    Seven (are) they, seven (are) they, seven twice again are they.”[217]

M. Lenormant gives a translation of a very long Accadian incantation
against disease-demons; it is in the form of a litany, and each verse
ends with the words:—

    “Spirit of the heavens, conjure it! Spirit of the earth, conjure it!”

There are some twenty-eight verses in all, and a great number of
diseases are mentioned. I have only space for a few of these.

    “Ulcers which spread, malignant ulcers.”

    “Disease of the bowels, the disease of the heart, the palpitation of
        the diseased heart,
    Disease of the vision, disease of the head,” etc.

    “Painful fever, violent fever,
    The fever which never leaves man,
    Unremitting fever,
    The lingering fever, malignant fever.
    Spirit of the heavens, conjure it,” etc., etc.

In the Assyrian version it seems to be hinted that the expectoration
of phthisical patients was as dangerous as our modern bacteriologists
declare it to be, for we have these words:—

  “The poisonous consumption which in the mouth malignantly ascends.”[218]

In the course of Layard’s excavations at Nineveh, a divining chamber
was discovered, at the entrance to which figures of the magi were
found. One of the orders of these magicians was the “Mecasphim,”
translated by Jerome and the Greeks “enchanters,” such as used noxious
herbs and drugs, the blood of victims, and the bones of the dead for
their superstitious rites. Another class was the “Casdim,” who were a
sort of philosophers, who were exempt from all employment except the
duty of studying physic, astrology, the foretelling of future events,
the interpretation of dreams by augury, etc.[219]

The Assyrians had different demons for different diseases—some injured
the head, others attacked the hands and feet.[220]

The Assyrians believed that seven evil spirits might enter a man at the
same time; and there is a tablet which tells of the protection afforded
by a god against such demons. When the deity stands at the sick man’s
bedside, “those seven evil spirits he shall root out, and shall expel
them from his body, and those seven shall never return to the sick man
again.”[221]

“Sometimes images of the gods were brought into the sick-room, and
written texts from the holy books were put on the walls, and bound
round the sick man’s brains. Holy texts were spread out on each side of
the threshold.”[222]

In Mr. George Smith’s _History of Assyria from the Monuments_, there
is a translation of an Assyrian tablet from Assur-bani-pal’s library.
The tablet is on the charms to expel evil curses and spells. “It is
supposed in it,” says Mr. Smith, “that a man was under a curse, and
Merodach, one of the gods, seeing him next to the god Hea, his father,
enquired how to cure him. Hea, the god of wisdom, in answer related the
ceremonies and incantations for effecting his recovery, and these are
recorded in the tablet for the benefit of the faithful in after times.”


TRANSLATION OF TABLET.

   1. The evil curse like a demon fixes on a man
   2. a raging voice over him is fixed
   3. an evil voice over him is fixed
   4. the evil curse is a great calamity
   5. that man the evil curse slaughters like a lamb
   6. his god from over him departs
   7. his goddess stands angry at his side
   8. the raging voice like a cloak covers him and bears him away
   9. the god Merodach saw him and
  10. to his father Hea into the house he entered and said
  11. My father, the evil curse like a demon fixes on a man
  12. And a second time he spake to him
  13. To cure that man I am not able, explain to me how to do it.
  14. Hea to his son Merodach answered
  15. My son, thou knowest not how, I will recount to thee how to do it,
  16. Merodach, thou knowest not how, I will reveal to thee how to do it,
  17. What I know, thou shalt know.
  18. Go my son Merodach.
  19. pure —  —  — carry to him
  20. that spell break, and that spell remove.
  21. From the curse of his father
  22. from the curse of his mother
  23. from the curse of his elder brother
  24. from the curse of the incantation which the man does not know
  25. the spell in the words of the lips of the god Hea
  26. Like a plant break
  27. like a fruit crush
  28. like a branch split.
  29. For the spell the invocation of heaven may he repeat the invocation
          of earth may he repeat
  30. Thus: Like unto this plant which is broken may be the spell.
  31. In the burning flames it burns
  32. in fragments it shall not be collected
  33. together or divided it shall not be used
  34. its fragments the earth shall not take
  35. its seeds shall not produce and the sun shall not raise them
  36. for the festival of god and king it shall not be used
  37. —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —
  38. the evil invocation, the finger pointing, the marking, the cursing,
          the sinning,
  39. the evil which in my body, my limbs and my teeth is fixed,
  40. like this plant may it be broken and
  41. in this day may the burning flames consume,
  42. may it drive out the spell and I shall be free
  43. Thus: Like unto this fruit which is crushed may be the spell,
  44. in the burning flames it burns
  45. to its severed stalk it shall not return
  46. for the banquet of god and king it shall not be used
  47. —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —
  48. the evil invocation, the finger pointing, the marking, the cursing,
          the sinning.
  49. the evil which in my body, my limbs and my teeth is fixed
  50. like this fruit may it be crushed and
  51. in this day may the burning flames consume,
  52. may it drive out the spell and I shall be free
  53. Thus: Like unto this branch which is split may be the spell,
  54. in the burning flames it burns
  55. its fibres to the trunk shall not return
  56. to satisfy a wish it shall not come
  57. —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —
  58. the evil invocation, the finger pointing, the marking, the cursing,
          the sinning.
  59. the evil which in my body, my limbs and my teeth is fixed
  60. like this branch may it be split and
  61. in this day may the burning flames consume,
  62. may it drive out the spell and I shall be free
  63. Thus: Like unto this wool which is torn may be the spell,
  64. in the burning flames it burns
  65. to the back of the sheep it shall not return
  66. for the clothing of god and king it shall not be used
  67. —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —
  68. the evil invocation, the finger pointing, the marking, the cursing,
          the sinning.
  69. the evil which in my body, my limbs and my teeth is fixed
  70. like this wool may it be torn and
  71. in this day may the burning flames consume
  72. may it drive out the spell and I shall be free
  73. Thus: Like unto this flag which is torn may be the spell,
  74. in the burning flames it burns
  75. on to its mast it shall not return
  76. to satisfy a wish it shall not come
  77. —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —
  78. the evil invocation, the finger pointing, the marking, the cursing,
          the sinning.
  79. the evil which in my body, my limbs and my teeth is fixed
  80. like this flag may it be torn and
  81. in this day may the burning flames consume
  82. may it drive out the spell and I shall be free
  83. Thus: Like unto this thread which is broken may be the spell,
  84. in the burning flames it burns
  85. the weaver into a cloak shall not weave it
  86. for the clothing of god and king it shall not be used
  87. —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —
  88. the evil invocation, the finger pointing, the marking, the cursing,
          the sinning.
  89. the evil which in my body, my limbs and my teeth is fixed.
  90. like this thread may it be broken and
  91. in this day may the burning flames consume
  92. may it drive out the spell and I shall be free.

The image of Hea placed in the doorway kept away the disease-demons.

In the Babylonian and Assyrian rooms of the British Museum there is
a collection of bowls inscribed with charms in Chaldee, Syriac, and
Mandaitie. It is supposed that they were used by sick persons, who
drank their physic from them, trusting that it would thereby be more
efficacious. As they drank they recited the formulæ and names of the
archangels, Michael, Raphael, Ariel, Shaltiel, Malkiel, etc., which
were inscribed upon them. The catalogue says that the earliest of these
bowls were made about B.C. 200. Many are from Tell-Ibrahim (Cutha). It
may be mentioned in this connection that Catholics frequently make the
sign of the cross over medicinal potions before taking them.

The origin of the Sabbath as a day of cessation from all labour is
evidently Accadian. In the following translation of an Assyrian
tablet[223] we find the Sabbatarian principle in full force.

“The seventh day, feast of Merodach and Zir: Panibu, a great feast, a
day of rest. The prince of the people will eat neither the flesh of
birds nor cooked fruits. He will not change his clothing. He will put
on no white robe. He will bring no offering. The king will not ascend
into his chariot. He will not perform his duties as royal law-giver.
In a garrison city the commander will permit no proclamations to his
soldiers. The art of the physician will not be practised.” This is
another proof that the Jews derived many of their religious customs
from the Assyrians and Accadians. The Assyrian Sabbath was evidently
observed as strictly as under the Mosaic code. It is curious to note
that the physician was not permitted to exercise his merciful calling
on that day, and it throws light on the objection of the Jews to Christ
that it was not lawful to heal on the Sabbath-day.




CHAPTER IV.

THE MEDICINE OF THE HINDUS.

 The Aryans.—Hindu Philosophy.—The Vedas.—The Shastres of Charaka and
 Susruta.—Code of Menu.—The Brahmans.—Medical Practitioners.—Strabo
 on the Hindu Philosophers.—Charms.—Buddhism and Medicine.—Jíwaka,
 Buddha’s Physician.—The Pulse.—Knowledge of Anatomy and Surgery in
 Ancient Times.—Surgical Instruments.—Decadence of Hindu Medical
 Science.—Goddesses of Disease.—Origin of Hospitals in India.


The Hindus are considered by Max Müller to be much older even as
regards their civilization than the Egyptians. This belief is based on
his study of their language, which he says existed “before there was
a single Greek statue, a single Babylonian bull, or a single Egyptian
sphinx.” According to him, the noble Indo-Germanic or Aryan people,
from whom have descended the Brahman, the Rájput, and the Englishman,
had their earliest home, not in Hindustan, but in Central Asia. (Max
Müller’s theory is now superseded by anthropological researches so far
as the Europeans are concerned.) This splendid race drove before them
into the mountains or reduced to slavery the _Dasyus_, the obscure
aborigines, the non-Aryan primæval peoples. The earliest Aryan poets
composed the _Rig-Veda_ at least three thousand, perhaps even four
thousand years ago. The handsome Aryan fair-complexioned conquerors
spoke with the utmost contempt of “the noseless” or “flat-nosed”
Mongolian aborigines, who, in the Vedic poems, from being “gross
feeders on flesh,” “lawless,” “non-sacrificing” tribes, were afterwards
described as “monsters” and “demons.”[224]

It is necessary, if we wish to understand the principles of Hindu
medicine, to glance at the philosophy and religion of the Brahmans and
Buddhists. The Aryan conquerors descending through the Himalayas were a
sober, industrious, courageous people, who lived a pastoral life, and
knowing nothing of the enervating attractions of great cities, required
no other medical treatment than simple folk medicine everywhere
affords. Their earliest literature is found in the “Vedic Hymns,” the
“Sacred Books of the Hindus,” which were composed by the wisest and
best of the men, who were warriors and husbandmen, and the priests and
physicians of their own households. They gradually acquired priestly
supremacy over a wider range. Thus arose the Brahmans, the “Offerers of
Potent Prayer.” The _Rig-Veda_ refers to physicians, and speaks of the
healing power of medicinal herbs; and the _Atharva-Veda_ contains an
invocation against the fever-demon, so that medical matters began very
early to receive attention after the conquest of India by the Aryans.

“Hinduism,” says Professor Monier Williams, “is a creed which may be
expressed by the two words, spiritual pantheism.”[225] Of all beliefs
this is the simplest. Nothing really exists but the One Universal
Spirit; man’s soul is identical with that Spirit. Separate existence
apart from the Supreme is mere illusion; consequently every man’s
highest aim should be to get rid for ever of doing, having, and being,
and strive to consider himself a part of the One Spirit. This in a
few words is esoteric Hinduism. When we attempt to study the endless
ramifications of the exoteric, or popular belief, the system, so far
from being simple, is infinitely complicated. God may amuse Himself by
illusory appearances. Light in the rainbow is one, but it manifests
itself variously. All material objects, and the gods, demons, good and
evil spirits, men, and animals are emanations from the One Universal
Spirit; though temporarily they exist apart from him, they will all
ultimately be reabsorbed into their source. In the Sanskrit language,
which is the repository of _Veda_, or “knowledge,” we have the vehicle
of Hindu philosophy. The systems of Hindu philosophy which grew out of
the third division of the _Vedas_, called the _Upanishads_, are six,
and are given in Professor Monier Williams’ work already referred to as—

  1. The Nyāya, founded by Gotama.
  2. The Vais’eshika, by Kanāda.
  3. The Sānkhya, by Kapila.
  4. The Yoga, by Pantanjali.
  5. The Mīmānsā, by Jaimini.
  6. The Vedānta, by Bādarāyana or Vyāsa.

We know neither the dates of these systems, nor which of them preceded
the other.

Oriental scholars tell us that, 500 years before Christ, in India,
China, Greece, and Persia men began to formulate philosophical systems
of religious belief, and to elaborate scientific ideas of the world
in which they lived. Williams considers the _Vais’eshika_ system of
philosophy the most interesting of all the systems, from the parallels
it offers to European philosophical ideas. This system goes more
correctly than the others into the qualities of all substances. It is
therefore more scientific, as we should say. It is most interesting to
discover how nearly the doctrine of the atoms approaches our Western
teaching. The following is Professor Williams’ account of these views:—

“First, then, as to the formation of the world, this is supposed
to be effected by the aggregation of _Anus_, or ‘Atoms.’ These are
innumerable and eternal, and are eternally aggregated, disintegrated,
and re-integrated by the power of Adrishta. According to the Kanādas
Sūtras, an atom is ‘something existing, having no cause, eternal.’ They
are, moreover, described as less than the least, invisible, intangible,
indivisible, imperceptible by the senses, and as having each of them
a _Vis’esha_ or eternal essence of its own. The combination of these
atoms is first into an aggregate of two, called _Duy-anuka_. Three of
them, again, are supposed to combine into a _Trasa-renu_, which, like a
mote in a sunbeam, has just magnitude enough to be perceptible.”[226]

In the Sānkhya philosophy we find something very like Darwinism. “There
cannot be the production of something out of nothing; that which is not
cannot be developed into that which is. The production of what does
not already exist (potentially) is impossible, like a horn on a man;
because there must of necessity be a material out of which a product is
developed; and because everything cannot occur everywhere at all times;
and because anything possible must be produced from something competent
to produce it.” (_Aphorisms_, i. 78, 114-117).[227]

The _Upa-Vedas_, or secondary _Vedas_, treat of various sciences,
one of which, _Ayur-Veda_, is the “science of life,” or medicine. By
some this is considered to belong to the _Atharva-Veda_; by others
to the _Rig-Veda_. By _Ayur-Veda_ we are to understand something
derived immediately from the gods. The supplementary revelation known
as _Upa-Vedas_ dates about 350 B.C., and there we find Brahmanical
medicine already developing.[228]

“Of all ancient nations,” says Elphinstone, “the Egyptians are the one
whom the Hindus seem most to have resembled.”[229]

There is good reason for believing that the ancient Greeks derived much
of their philosophy and religion from the Egyptians, who seem in their
turn to have taken both in great measure from India. Says Elphinstone:
“It is impossible not to be struck with the identity of the topics
discussed by the Hindu philosophers with those which engaged the
attention of the same class in ancient Greece, and with the similarity
between the doctrines of schools subsisting in regions of the earth so
remote from each other.”[230]

Here we find the doctrines of the eternity of matter, the derivation
of all souls from God and their return to Him, the doctrine of atoms
and a whole system similar to that of Pythagoras. The Greek philosopher
taught that intermediate between God and mankind are a host of aerial
beings who exercise various influences on the condition of mankind
and the affairs of the world. Enfield[231] and Stanley[232] say that
Pythagoras learned his doctrine from the Magi or Oriental philosophers.

Max Müller says that Zarathustra and his followers, the Zoroastrians,
had been settled in India before they immigrated into Persia. “That the
Zoroastrians and their ancestors started from India during the Vaidik
period, can be proved as distinctly as that the inhabitants of Massilia
started from Greece.... Many of the gods of the Zoroastrians come out
... as mere reflections and deflections of the primitive and authentic
gods of _Veda_.”[233]

The Hindus say that when their four immortal Vedas, named Rig, Yajur,
Sáma, and Atharva, were originally given to man by Brahma, there was
no disease or sin; but when mankind fell away from this virtuous and
happy state, life was shortened and disease introduced. Brahma, in his
compassion for the sufferings of mankind, then gave a second class of
sacred books, the _Upavédas_; one of these, named _Ayur-Veda_, treats
of the prevention and cure of diseases. Some say this work really came
from Siva; it is the sacred medical authority of the Hindus, and is of
the highest antiquity. It was originally of great length, but Brahma in
mercy to mankind shortened it. Fragments now only remain, and these in
the works of commentators. Two divisions treat of surgery. 1st, _Salya_
treats of the surgery of the removal of foreign bodies, pus, and the
dead child from the uterus; of healing wounds caused by knives, etc.;
of bandaging, operations, blistering, and the treatment of abscesses
and inflammations. 2nd, _Sálákya_ treats of diseases of the eyes, ears,
mouth, and nose. 3rd, _Káyachikitsá_ describes diseases affecting the
whole body, as fevers, dysentery, etc. This section may be considered
as constituting the practice of medicine. 4th, _Bhutavidya_ deals with
the art of restoring the deranged faculties of the mind produced by
demoniacal possession, as by the anger of the gods, devils, giants, or
spirits of dead men. They can only be removed by prayers, medicines,
ablution, and offerings to the offended deity. 5th, _Kaumárabhritya_
comprises the treatment of infants and such diseases as in them were
caused by the displeasure of demons. 6th, _Agadatantra_ is concerned
with the administration of antidotes. 7th, _Rasáyanatantra_ treats of
the medicines proper for restoring youth, beauty, and happiness; it
embraced chemistry or alchemy, and its intention was to discover the
universal medicine. 8th, _Vájíkaranatantra_ deals with the best means
of increasing the human race: an illusory research, which, like the
search for the elixir of life, has even in modern times occupied the
attention of physicians. The sacred _Ayur-Veda_ contained a description
of the structure of the human body as learned from dissection, and a
complete system of preventive and curative medicine.

In the Shastres (Charaka, Susruta), we learn that the _Ashwins_,
or offspring of the Sun (Surja), were the physicians of the gods;
they wrote books on medicine, and wrought wonderful cures. When the
fifth head of Brahma was cut off by Bayraba, it was united again by
the _Ashwins_, so skilled were they in surgery. They also cured the
wounds which the gods received in the battle with the giants. They
healed also the paralysed arm of Indra. When mankind became wicked,
and consequently diseased, _Bharadwaja_ went to Indra in heaven to
acquire a knowledge of medicine, and the thousand-eyed god taught him
the healing art. With this knowledge the sage _Bharadwaja_ returned to
earth, and taught the _Rishis_ the principles he had acquired. So the
sages learned to distinguish diseases and the medicines suitable for
their cure; they lived to a very great age, writing books called by
their own names. _Charaka_ became the instructor of practitioners upon
earth, and his is the most ancient and famous work on Hindu medicine.
Charaka, whom we may term the Hindu Hippocrates, flourished at Benares,
probably about B.C. 320. The most celebrated and ancient collection of
Hindu laws and precepts is that which is known as “the Code of Menu,”
or “Institutes of Menu.” It is probably the oldest and most sacred
Sanskrit work after the Veda and its Sutras, and presents us with a
faithful picture of the customs and institutions of the Hindus.

The Code of Menu lays it down that diseases are the consequences of
sinful acts in previous states of existence. “Men of evil manners
receive an alteration of form, some through evil (deeds) committed
(by them) in this life, some also through (acts) formerly committed.
A thief of gold (receives) the disease of bad nails; a drinker of
intoxicating liquor (the disease of) black teeth; a slayer of a
Brahman, consumption; he who violates the couch of the Guru, a skin
disease; a slanderer, a foul-smelling nose; a false informer, a
foul-smelling mouth; a stealer of grain, the loss of a limb, and
one who mixes (grain) a superfluity (of limbs); one who takes food,
dyspepsia; a thief of the voice, dumbness; a thief of clothes, leprosy;
a horse-thief, lameness; a stealer of a lamp would (in the next birth)
become blind; an extinguisher (of a lamp), one-eyed; by (committing)
injury (one would get) a condition of disease; by not (committing)
injury, the condition of not being diseased. Thus, according to the
difference in their acts, (men who are) blamed by the good are born
dull, dumb, blind, and deformed in appearance. Regularly, then, penance
should be practised for purification, since those whose sins have not
(thus) been done away with are (re)born with (these) disgraceful marks
attached.”[234]

Physicians are referred to several times in the _Ordinances of Menu_.
In Lect. iv. 179 we are advised that “we should never have a dispute
with a physician.” We are to avoid eating the “food of a physician and
hunter, if a cruel man,” etc. (Lect. iv. 212). “The food of a physician
is pus” (_Ibid._ 220). In Lect. ix. 284, “A fine (is set) for all
physicians treating (a case) incorrectly: in (the case of creatures)
not human (this is) the first, but in (the case of) human beings the
medium (fine).”[235]

The Brahmans believed there was a remedy for every disease, in
consequence of which they made a very careful examination of the
vegetable kingdom, and so discovered a great number of medicines. If
a medicine were efficacious in curing the patient, they invariably
supposed it was due to the sanctity of the individual, and the divine
pleasure which endowed him with it. It is therefore exceedingly
difficult to obtain information, as it is believed that the medicine
would lose its effect if the secret of the cure were divulged to
others. From these selfish motives, the knowledge of the properties of
many valuable remedies have been lost. Dr. Wise says, according to the
Brahmans, there are nine secrets which should not be revealed to any
one: these are the age of a person; his wealth; family occurrences;
his bad actions, or those which reflect shame or dishonour upon him;
his relations with his wife; his prayers to his tutelar gods; his
charities; and the virtues of nostrums, the ingredients of which are
known to him.

Yet priests, says Baas, from the Brahman caste, and the sub-castes, the
Vaisya and Vaidya, officiated for a long time as teachers of medicine
and as physicians. The Vaidyas, as the higher of the two sub-castes,
included the physicians proper; while the Vaisyas, or lower caste,
furnished nurses.[238]

When Buddhism passed into modern Hinduism (750-1000 A.D.) the rules
of caste became stricter, and the old fetters were reimposed, and the
Brahmans returned to their ancient principles which forbade them to
contaminate themselves with blood or morbid matter; they withdrew from
all practice of medicine, and left it entirely to the Vaidyas. After a
time these also shrank from touching dead bodies. Then public hospitals
were abolished when Buddhism fell. The Mohammedan conquests which began
about 1000 A.D. introduced foreign practitioners of physic, who derived
their knowledge from Arabic translations of Sanskrit medical classics
and monopolised the patronage of the Mohammedan aristocracy.[239]

The only remains of the Buddhist hospitals now existing are the various
institutions for animals, supported principally by the Jains, a sort of
Protestants against Brahmanism.[240]

The Mohammedan medical practitioners were called “Hukeems,” who
followed the principles of Arabian medicine derived from Greek sources.
As a rule these practitioners only attended on nobles and chiefs. There
is no evidence even that the Mohammedan invaders employed medical men
for their armies.[241]

Dr. Benjamin Heyne, in his _Tracts on India_, says,[242]—

“The medical works of the Hindus are neither to be regarded as
miraculous productions of wisdom, nor as repositories of nonsense.
Their practical principles, as far as I can judge, are very similar to
our own; and even their theories may be reconciled with ours, if we
make allowance for their ignorance of anatomy, and the imperfections of
their physiological speculations.”

In surgery they attained to high proficiency, and our modern
surgeons have even been able to borrow from them the operation of
rhinoplasty.[243]

Concerning the medicinal properties of minerals (stones and metals),
plants, animal substances, and the chemical analysis and decomposition
of these, we have also learned much that is extremely valuable from the
Hindus. Their _Materia Medica_ is so important, and has played so large
a part in Western medical science, that we cannot afford to despise it,
though the Hindus have contributed so little to the study of natural
science.[244] Veterinary medicine, so far as the diseases of horses
and elephants are concerned, has received special attention from the
Hindus.

Charaka counsels youths who desire to study medicine to “seek a teacher
whose precepts are sound and whose practical skill is generally
approved, who is clever, dexterous, upright, and blameless; who knows
also how to use his hands, has the requisite appliances, and all his
senses about him; is confident with simple cases, and sure of his
treatment in difficult ones; of genuine learning, unaffected, not
morose or passionate, patient and kind to his pupils.” The pupils
should spring from a family of doctors, and should have lost none of
their limbs and none of their senses. “They are to be taught to be
chaste and temperate, to speak the truth, to obey their teacher in
all things, and to wear a beard.” They are advised to read medical
treatises, attend to the personal instruction of their teacher, and
to associate with other doctors. When the doctor visits his patient
he should wear good clothes, incline his head, be thoughtful but of
firm bearing, and observe all possible respect. Once within the house,
word, thought, and attention should be directed to nothing else than
the examination of the patient and all that concerns his case. He
must not be a boaster. “Many recoil even from a man of skill if he
loves to boast.” As medicine is difficult to learn, the doctor must
practise carefully and incessantly. He must seek every opportunity for
conversation with a colleague. This will remove doubts, if he have
them, and fortify his opinion.

When an operation is decided on, a fortunate moment, says Dr. Wise,
is to be selected, and the Brahmans and the surgeons are to be
“propitiated” with gifts. The operating room is to be clean and well
lighted, milk, oil, herbs, hot and cold water are to be at hand, and
strong attendants to hold the patient. The knife should be wet with
water before being used. The sky must be clear, and the time should be
near the new moon. The surgeon must be strong and a rapid operator, and
he must neither perspire, shake, nor make exclamations. The palms of
the hands and soles of the feet, vessels, tendons, joints, and bones
are to be avoided. During the operation, care must be taken to keep a
fire burning in the patient’s room, on which sweet-scented substances
are to be burnt, in order to prevent devils entering the patient by
the wound made by the surgeon. After the operation holy water is to be
sprinkled on the sufferer, and prayer addressed to Brahma. The bandages
are to remain till the third day, and clean ones substituted.[245]

Susruta was the son of _Visámitra_, a contemporary of Rama, and was
chosen by Dhanwantari, who was the Hindu Æsculapius, to abridge the
Ayur-Veda for the cure of diseases and the preservation of the health,
so that it might be more easily committed to memory. Susruta’s book is
still preserved, and after Charaka’s it is the oldest book on medicine
which the Hindus possess. Surgery was considered by Susruta to be “the
first and best of the medical sciences; less liable than any other to
the fallacies of conjectural and inferential practice; pure in itself,
perpetual in its applicability; the worthy produce of heaven, and
certain source of fame.”

Wise says,[246] “Dhanwantari asked his pupils, On what shall I first
lecture? They answered, On surgery; because formerly there were no
diseases among the gods, and wounds were the first injuries which
required treatment. Besides, the practice of surgery is more respected,
as affording immediate relief, and is connected with the practice of
medicine; although the latter has no connection with surgery.” This was
agreed to; and we find the explanation of the eight parts of Ayur-Veda,
in six books of Susruta, as follows:—

1st. Surgery (Sútra Sthána), in which is considered the origin of
medicine; the rules of teaching, the duty of practitioners, the
selection and uses of instruments and medicines, the influence of the
weather on health, and the practice to be followed after surgical
operations. Then follows the description of the diseases of the
humours and surgical diseases; the restoration of defective ears and
noses; and the removal of extraneous substances which have entered
the body; the different stages of inflammation, with their treatment;
different forms of wounds and ulcers, and the regimen of patients
labouring under surgical diseases; the description of good and bad
diet; of prognosis; the kind of messengers to be employed by the sick;
and of diseases produced by the deranged actions of the senses, and
of incurable diseases. Then follows the preparations required for
accompanying a rajah in war, the duty of practitioners, the difference
of climates, the different classes of medicines according to their
sensible qualities, a description of the fluids, and of the different
preparations, and articles of food. These subjects are treated of in
thirty-six chapters.

2nd. Nosology (Nidána Sthána). The description and diagnosis of
diseases produced by vitiated humous, or derangements of blood, bile,
wind, and phlegm; the symptoms and causes of rheumatic diseases, of
piles, of stone, fistula-in-ano, leprosy, diabetes, gonorrhœa, and
ascites; the symptoms of unnatural presentations in midwifery, large
internal abscesses, erysipelas, scrofula, hydrocele, venereal diseases,
and diseases of the mouth. These subjects are considered in sixteen
chapters.

3rd. Anatomy (Saríra Sthána), or structure of the body. The description
of the soul, and the elementary parts of the body; of puberty; of
conception; of the growth of the different parts of the body; of
bleeding; of the treatment of pregnancy, and of infants. This division
has ten chapters.

4th. Therapeutics (Chikitsa Sthána), in which the exhibition of
medicines, the history of inflammations, the treatment of fractures,
rheumatic diseases, piles, fistula-in-ano, leprosy, diabetes, and
dropsy are given; the manner of extracting the child in unusual
positions, the remedies for restoring health and strength, and for
prolonging life; the means of preventing diseases; the use of clysters,
and of errhines, and the use of the smoke of different substances.
These are considered in forty chapters.

5th. Toxicology (Kalpa Sthána). The means of distinguishing poisoned
food, and descriptions of different mineral, vegetable, and animal
poisons, with their antidotes, is given under this head. This division
is treated of in eight chapters.

6th. The supplementary section, Locales (Uttara Sthána), includes
various local diseases; as those of the eye, nose, ears and head,
with their treatment; the symptoms and treatment of fever, and its
varieties; dysentery, consumption; _gulma_; diseases of the heart;
jaundice; discharges of blood, and fainting. This is followed by the
treatment of intoxication, of cough, hiccough, asthma, hoarseness of
voice, worms, stercoraceous vomiting, cholera, dyspepsia, and dysuria.
It also treats of madness, epilepsy, apoplexy; the different tastes
of substances, with their effects; the means of retaining health, and
the different opinions of practitioners regarding the humours. These
subjects are treated in sixty-six chapters.

According to Susruta a pupil had to be initiated into the Science
of Medicine. “A medical man should initiate a pupil who is either a
Brahmana, Kshatriya, or Vaishya, the members of whose body are sound,
of an amiable disposition, active, well-conducted, mild, healthy,
vigorous, talented, courageous, of a retentive memory, good judgment
and rank, whose tooth-ends, tongue, and lips are small, whose eyes,
nose, and mouth are straight, of a pleasant mind, talk, and behaviour,
and able to bear fatigue; other such should not be initiated.”

Many ceremonies follow; an altar is to be erected having four angles
in some conspicuous direction, which is to be washed with infusion of
cow-dung and spread with kúsa grass; precious stones and rice are to
be scattered upon it, and a fire is to be kindled with a number of
precious woods, an oblation of ghee is to be made, and the mystic words
Bhúr Bhuvah Svar and Om are to be said. “After this hail each divinity
(Brahma, Agni, Dhanvantari, Prajápati, Asvins, and Indra) and each Sage
(the Rishis), and make the pupil do the same.”

Stenzler and others have thought it possible that Susruta borrowed his
system of medicine largely from the Greeks, and they say that so far
as chronology is affected by it there would be nothing surprising in
the circumstance. But Weber asserts[247] that no grounds whatever exist
for this supposition; on the contrary, there is much to tell against
such an idea. None of the contemporaries of Susruta has a name with a
foreign sound, and the cultivation of medicine is assigned by Susruta
and other writers to the city of Benares. The weights and measures to
be employed by the physician are those of the eastern provinces, which
never came into close contact with the Greeks, and it was first in
these parts where medicine received its special cultivation.

In the general treatment of disease, the Hindus paid great attention to
diet, so as to promote the just balance of the elements and humours,
as they considered that the generality of diseases are produced by
derangements in the humours. Many of their statements on dietetics
show a keen observation. If management of diet failed to cure the
disorder, the patient was directed to abstain from food altogether
for a time. Should this also fail, recourse was had to ejecting the
corrupted humours by emetics, purgatives, or bleeding. Even the healthy
were advised to take an emetic once a fortnight, a purgative once a
month, and to be bled twice a year at the change of the seasons. The
Hindus observed the “critical days” which have long been recognised by
physicians everywhere. Pythagoras says the Egyptians observed them, and
Hippocrates employed the term κρασις when the humoral pathology was
in vogue. The Hindus thought that all diseases divide naturally into
two classes of the sthenic and asthenic types. In the one there was
excess, in the other deficiency of excitement. Health consists in a
happy medium. All the Asiatic nations hold this opinion. Their remedies
consequently were stimulating or cooling, as the type of the malady
demanded. Pepper, bitters, and purgatives were stimulants. Stomachics,
as _chiraitá_, paun mixed with lime, bathing and cold were cooling
remedies.[248]

The sages of antiquity have handed down to us the qualities which
constitute a good physician. He must be strictly truthful, and of
the greatest sobriety and decorum; he must have no dealings with any
women but his own wife; he must be a man of sense and benevolence,
of a charitable heart, and of a calm temper, constantly studying how
to do good. Such a man is a good physician if, in addition to this,
he constantly endeavours to improve his mind by the study of good
books. He is not to be peevish with an irritable patient; he must be
courageous and hopeful to the last day of his patient’s life; always
frank, communicative, and impartial, he is yet to be rigid in seeing
that his orders are carried out.

Hindu physicians make their prognosis a strong point in their practice;
there are, they say, certain signs which to the experienced eye enable
the doctor to prognosticate the favourable or fatal termination of a
disorder. And in the first place a good deal is to be learned from
the messenger who summons him to the patient, and so he notes his
appearance, his dress, his manner of speaking; he notes the time of
day and other circumstances, as these are all considered to have an
influence on the result of the illness. It is considered unfavourable
if many people follow each other to call the doctor. If the messenger
sees a man arrive riding on an ass, or if he has a stick, string, or
fruit in his hand, if he is dressed in red, black, or net clothes, if
he sneezes, is deformed, agitated, crying, or scratching himself,—all
these are bad signs. Not less so is it unfavourable when the physician
is called at noonday or midnight, when he has his face turned towards
the south, when he is eating, or when he is asleep or fatigued.[249]

When the doctor arrives at the bedside, it is an unfavourable sign
if the patient rubs one hand against another, scratches his back,
or constantly moves his head. There are eight most severe forms of
disease—the nervous class, tetanus and paralysis; leprosy; piles,
fistula-in-ano, stone; unnatural presentations in labour; and dropsy of
the abdomen. These are cured with great difficulty, say the Hindus.

It is a good sign when the patient’s voice remains unaltered, when he
awakes from sleep without starting, when he remains cool after food,
and when he does not forget his god, but is prayerful and resigned.

“When the messenger finds the physician sitting in a clean place,
with his face towards the east, and the messenger has in his hands a
water-pot full of water, with an umbrella, they are favourable signs.”

“In Ceylon it is affirmed by the Shastree Brahmans that the Science
of Medicine was communicated by _Măhă Brăhma_ to the _Brăhma Dăkshă
Prajapatí_; by _Prajapatí_ it was communicated to the _Aswins_ (the
physicians of heaven): the two _Aswins_ communicated it to _Satora_,
the chief of the gods inhabiting the six lower heavens, by whom it was
communicated to the nine sages, mentioned, on their going to him with
one accord to seek a remedy for the evils brought upon mankind by their
iniquities; they communicated it to the King of Casi (_Benares_), whose
descendants caused it to be committed to writing.”[250]

Arrianus, in his history of Alexander’s expedition to India, says that
“speckled snakes of a wonderful size and swiftness” are found in that
country, and that “The Grecian physicians found no remedy against
the bite of these snakes; but the Indians cured those who happened
to fall under that misfortune; for which reason, Nearchus tells us,
Alexander having all the most skilful Indians about his person, caused
proclamation to be made throughout the camp that whoever was bit by
one of these snakes, should forthwith repair to the royal pavilion
for cure. These physicians also cure other diseases; but as they have
a very temperate clime, the inhabitants are not subject to many.
However, if any among them feel themselves much indisposed, they apply
themselves to their sophists, who by wonderful, and even more than
human means, cure whatever will admit of it.”[251]

Strabo speaks of the Hindu philosophers or sages, and the physicians.
“Of the Garmanes, the most honourable,” he says, “are the Hylobii,
who live in the forests, and subsist on leaves and wild fruits; they
are clothed with garments made of the bark of trees, and abstain from
commerce with women and from wine. The kings hold communication with
them by messengers concerning the causes of things, and through them
worship and supplicate the Divinity. Second in honour to the Hylobii
are the physicians, for they apply philosophy to the study of the
nature of man. They are of frugal habits, but do not live in the
fields, and subsist upon rice and bread, which every one gives when
asked, and receive them hospitably. They are able to cause persons to
have a numerous offspring, and to have either male or female children,
by means of charms. They cure diseases by diet, rather than by
medicinal remedies. Among the latter, the most in repute are ointments
and plasters. All others they suppose partake greatly of a noxious
nature.”[252] They had enchanters and diviners versed in the arts of
magic, who went about the villages and towns begging.

Arrianus said of the Hindus that their women were deemed marriageable
at seven years of age; but the men, not till they arrive at the age of
forty.[253]

Many charms, imprecations, and other superstitious usages of ancient
India are contained in the Atharva-veda-Samhitâ. This body of
literature dates, according to Max Müller, from 1000 to 800 B.C. (the
Mantra period).[254] In this Samhitâ a number of songs are addressed
to illnesses, and the healing herbs appropriate for their cure.
Sarpa-vidyá (serpent-science) possibly dealt with medical matters
also.[255]

The oldest fragments (very poor ones, it must be confessed) of Hindu
medical science are to be found in these relics of Vedic times.

In a work on Indian medicine called the _Kalpastanum_ described by Dr.
Heyne,[256] we read that the doctor’s apparatus of mortars, scales,
etc., must be kept in a place in the wall that has been consecrated for
that purpose by religious ceremonies. In the middle of the medicine
room the mystic sign must be set up, with images of Brahma, Vishnu, and
Siva.

[Illustration: Mystic sign]

Many ceremonies must be gone through in the preparation of medicines;
the physician must attend to the boiling of some of them himself,
and the spot round the fireplace must be smeared with cow-dung by a
virgin, or by the mother of sons whose husband is alive; at the same
time, offerings must be made to the gods. Should any of the ceremonies
be omitted, the patient will repent the neglect, for devils of all
descriptions will defile the medicine and hinder its good effect.
Before the patient takes his potion, the god of physic is to be
worshipped in the person of his deputy, the doctor, who naturally (and
for the good of the patient) is to be well rewarded for his services.

Buddhism, says Max Müller, is the frontier between ancient and modern
literature in India. He gives 477 B.C. as the probable date of Buddha’s
death,[257] and describes the religion of that great sage as standing
in the same relation to the ancient Brahmanism of the Veda as Italian
to Latin, or as Protestantism to Catholicism. It is a development from
Brahmanism, yet it is not the religion of India, though it has greatly
influenced Hindu thought.[258]

Buddha’s religious system recognised no supreme deity; a Buddhist never
really prays, he merely contemplates.[259]

Man can himself become the only god Buddha’s system finds room for.
God becomes man in Brahmanism; man becomes a god in Buddhism. All
existence is an evil to the Buddhist; “act” is to be got rid of as
effectually as possible, for action means existence. The great end of
the system is _Nirvāna_, or non-existence. “Of priests and clergy in
our sense,” says Professor Williams, “the Buddhist religion has none.”
Though there is no God, prayer is practised as a kind of charm against
diseases; for malignant demons, as we might have expected, are believed
by Buddhists to cause these and other evils. These Buddhist prayers
are used like the Mantras of the Brahmins as charms against evils of
all kinds. The Buddhists have a demon of love, anger, evil, and death,
called Māra, the opponent of Buddha. He can send forth legions of evil
demons like himself. Some of the precepts of Buddha are fully equal to
those of the highest religions—Charity, Virtue, Patience, Fortitude,
Meditation, and Knowledge. The special characteristic of Buddhism
is the perfection of its tenderness and mercy towards all living
creatures, even beasts of prey and noxious insects not being outside
the circle of its sympathy. According to the Buddhist’s belief, all our
acts ripen and go to form our Karma. The consequences of our acts must
inexorably be worked out. This is Brahminical as well as Buddhistic
doctrine. “In the Sábda-kalpa-druma, under the head of _Karma-vipāka_,”
says Williams, “will be found a long catalogue of the various diseases
with which men are born, as the fruit of evil deeds committed in former
states of existence, and a declaration as to the number of births
through which each disease will be protracted, unless, expiations be
performed in the present life.”[260]

All our sufferings, our sicknesses, weaknesses, and moral depravity
are simply the consequences of our actions in former bodies. When the
Jews asked our Lord, “Who did sin, this man (_i.e._ in a former life)
or his parents, that he was born blind?”[261] they evidently had in
their minds the Hindu doctrine of previous existences. The principles
of the Brahminic religion do not appear to have embraced any care for
or attention to the needs of sick people. Involved in philosophical
speculations, and the perfecting of their system of caste, the founders
of the Brahminic religion had no time to bestow on such mundane matters
as disease and its cure. It was not until the rise of Buddhism and the
political ascendency which it acquired over Brahmanism (from about 250
B.C. to A.D. 600), that public hospitals were established for man and
animals in the great cities of the Buddhist princes.[262] Buddhism had
a gospel for every living creature; it taught the spiritual equality
of all men, whose good works, without the mediation of priests and
Brahmins, would save them from future punishment. Medicine, under the
fostering care of Buddhism, was studied as any other science, and
the noblest outcome of the movement was the establishment of public
hospitals. A great seat of medical learning was established at Benares,
and Asoka, King of Behar or Putra, published fourteen Edicts, one of
which devised a system of medical care for man and beast.[263]

Amongst the legends of Gotama Buddha is the history of Jíwaka, which is
of great interest to the historians of medicine, as it illustrates the
state of the science in India at that early age. The following account
is abbreviated from Mr. Spence Hardy’s translation of Singhalese
MSS.[264]

Jíwaka was a physician who administered medicine to Budha. He learned
his profession in this way. When he was seven or eight years of age,
he ran away from his parents, resolving that he would learn some
science; so he considered the character of the eighteen sciences and
the sixty-four arts, and determined that he would study the art of
medicine, that he might be called doctor, and be respected, and attain
to eminence. So he went to the collegiate city of Taksalá[265] and
applied to a learned professor to take him into his school of medicine.
The professor asked him what fees he had brought with him. Jíwaka
said he had no money, but he was willing to work. The professor liked
the manner of the lad, and agreed to teach him, though from other
pupils he received a thousand masurans. At this moment the throne of
Sekra trembled, as Jíwaka had been acquiring merit, and was soon to
administer medicine to Gotama Budha. The déwa resolved that as he was
to become the physician of Budha, he would himself be his teacher;
and for this purpose he came to the earth, entered the mouth of the
professor, and inspired him with the wisdom he needed to teach his
pupil in the most excellent manner.

Jíwaka made rapid progress, and soon discovered that he could treat
the patients more successfully than his master. He learned in seven
years as much about diseases as any other teacher could have taught
him in sixteen. Then Jíwaka asked his preceptor when his education
would be finished; and the old man, wishing to test his knowledge, told
him to take a basket and go outside the city for the space of sixteen
miles, and collect all the roots, barks, leaves, and fruits which were
useless in the art of medicine. Jíwaka did as he was instructed, and
after four days he returned and informed the professor that he had
met with no substance which in some way or other was not useful in
medicine; there was no such thing on earth. Now when the teacher heard
this reply, he said, there was no one who could teach the pupil any
more, and Sekra departed from his mouth. He knew that his pupil had
been taught by divine wisdom. Then Jíwaka journeyed to Sákétu, where
he found a woman who had a violent pain in her head, which for seven
years many learned physicians had vainly tried to cure. He offered
to cure her, but she said, “If all the learned doctors had failed to
relieve her, it was useless to seek the aid of a little child.” Jíwaka
replied that “Science is neither old nor young. I will not go away
till the headache is entirely cured.” Then the woman said, “My son,
give me relief for a single day: it is seven years since I was able
to sleep.” So Jíwaka poured a little medicine into her nose, which
went into her brain, and behold, all her headache was gone; and the
lady and her relations each gave the physician 4,000 níla-karshas,
with chariots, and other, and other gifts in abundance. After this
he cured the king of a fistula-in-ano, for which he received a royal
reward. There was in Rajagaha a rich nobleman who had a pain in his
head like the cutting of a knife. None of his physicians could cure
him, so Jíwaka took the noble into a room, sat behind him, and taking
a very sharp instrument, opened his skull; and setting aside the three
sutures, he seized the two worms which were gnawing his brain with
a forceps, and extracted them entire. He then closed up the wound
in such a manner that not a single hair was displaced. There was a
nobleman in Benares who had twisted one of his intestines into a knot,
so that he was not able to pass any solid food. Crowds of physicians
came to see him, but none of them dare undertake his case; but Jíwaka
said at once he could cure him. He bound his patient to a pillar that
he might not move, covered his face, and taking a sharp instrument,
without the noble’s being aware of what was going on, ripped open the
abdomen, took out his intestines, undid the knot, and replaced them
in a proper manner. He then rubbed ointment on the place, put the
patient to bed, fed him on rice-gruel, and in three days he was as
well as ever. Of course he had an immense fee. After performing other
wonderful cures, Jíwaka administered medicine to Budha in the perfume
of a flower. The narrative must be given in the words of the MS.: “In
this way was the medicine given. On a certain occasion when Budha was
sick, it was thought that if he were to take a little opening medicine
he would be better; and accordingly Ananda went to Jíwaka to inform
him that the teacher of the world was indisposed. On receiving this
information, Jíwaka, who thought that the time to which he had so long
looked forward had arrived, went to the wihára, as Budha was at that
time residing near Rajagaha. After making the proper inquiries, he
discovered that there were three causes of the disease; and in order
to remove them he prepared three lotus flowers, into each of which he
put a quantity of medicine. The flowers were given to Budha at three
separate times, and by smelling at them his bowels were moved ten times
by each flower. By means of the first flower the first cause of disease
passed away, and by the other two the second and third causes were
removed.”

This legend is instructive in many ways. It shows us that 500 B.C.
there were colleges in which medicine was taught, and that by special
professors of the art, who received large fees from their pupils and
kept them under instruction for many years. We find that the profession
of medicine brought great honours and rewards to its adepts. We learn
that trephining the skull for cerebral diseases was in use, and that
the operation of opening the abdomen for bowel obstructions was
understood. It reveals the important fact that already the whole of
nature had been ransacked for remedies, and that everything was more
or less useful to the physician. The great efficacy which the ancients
attributed to perfumes is exhibited in the lotus story, which reminds
us that when Democritus was aware that he was dying, he desired to
prolong his life beyond the festival of Ceres, and accomplished his
wish by inhaling the vapour of hot bread.

Galen’s description of the pulse in disease is very suggestive of the
ancient Sanskrit treatises on the pulse; so much is this the case, it
would seem, that either the Hindu physician must have copied from the
Roman, or the Roman from the Indian. He speaks of the _sharp-tailed_
or _myuri_, _fainting myuri_, _recurrent myuri_, _the goat-leap_ or
_dorcadissans_, a term derived from the animal _dorcas_, which, in
jumping aloft, stops in the air, and then unexpectedly takes another
and a swifter spring than the former. But if after the diastole it
recur, and before a complete systole take place, strike the finger
a second time; such a pulse is called a _reverberating_ one, or
_dicrotos_, from its beating twice. There is also the _undulatory_ and
_vermicular_ pulse, the _spasmodic_ and _vibratory_, the _ant-like_ or
_formicans_, from its resemblance to the ant (_formica_), on account
of its smallness and kind of motion; there is the _hectic_, the
_serrated_, the _fat_ and the _lean_ kind.

Medical etiquette amongst the Hindus was not overlooked.

“A physician who desires success in his practice, his own profit, a
good name, and finally a place in heaven, must pray daily for all
living creatures, first of the Brahmans and of the cow. The physician
should wear his hair short, keep his nails clean[266] and cut close,
and wear a sweet-smelling dress. He should never leave the house
without a cane or umbrella; he should avoid especially any familiarity
with women. Let his speech be soft, clear, pleasant. Transactions in
the house should not be bruited abroad.”[267]

The dissection and examination of the dead subject is not practised in
India, it is contrary to the tenets of the Brahmans; such knowledge
of anatomy as the Hindus possess must therefore be little else than
conjecture, formed by the study of the bodies of animals. Ainslie
says[268] that the Rajah of Tanjore, in the year 1826, was a learned
and enlightened prince, who was anxious to study the structure of the
human body, but was too rigid a Hindu to satisfy his curiosity at the
expense of his principles, so he ordered a complete skeleton made of
ivory to be sent to him from England. Sir William Jones states that in
a fragment of the _Ayur-Veda_ he was surprised to find an account of
the internal structure of the human frame.[269]

The ancient Hindus must have possessed considerable knowledge of
surgery. In a commentary on Susruta made by Ubhatta, a Cashmirian,
which may be as old, Ainslie thinks, as the twelfth century, many
valuable surgical definitions are distinctly detailed. According
to the best authorities, says Ainslie, surgery was of eight kinds:
_chedhana_, cutting or excision; _lekhana_, or scarification and
inoculation; _vyadhana_, puncturing; _eshyam_, probing or sounding;
_aharya_, extraction of solid bodies; _visravana_, extracting fluids
(by leeches and bleeding); _sevana_, or sewing; and _bhedana_, division
or excision.[270]

Twelve species of leeches are enumerated in some of the Sanskrit works
on surgery, six of which are poisonous and six useful medicinally.[271]

Dissection was practised in the most ancient times; but now there is
the greatest prejudice against touching the dead body, and modern
practitioners of Hindu medicine, where they do not follow the ancient
authors, are in a worse condition than they were, on account of the
present ignorance of anatomy. All the sages are alleged to have learned
their knowledge of medicine from the works of Charaka and Susruta.
Those who were taught by Charaka became physicians; those who were
followers of Susruta, surgeons. Charaka’s classification and plan of
treating diseases are considered superior to those of Susruta, but
the latter is prized for his anatomy and surgery. Babhata compiled a
compendium of medicine from the works of these great masters of the
art, and some three hundred years ago a compilation was made from all
the most celebrated works on medicine; this was called _Baboprukasa_.
It is clear and well arranged, and explains the difficulties and
obscurities of the ancient Shastres. This was compiled as a text-book
for practitioners, and is in high repute with them. Dr. Wise explains
the ancient methods of dissecting the human body as given in Hindu
text-books.

“The dejections are to be removed, and the body washed and placed in a
framework of wood, properly secured by means of grass, hemp, sugar-cane
reeds, corn-straw, pea-stalks, or the like. The body is then to be
placed in still water, in a moving stream, where it will not be injured
by birds, fish, or animals. It is to remain for seven days and nights
in the water, when it will have become putrid. It is then to be removed
to a convenient situation, and with a brush, made of reeds, hair, or
bamboo bark, the surface of the body is to be removed so as to exhibit
the skin, flesh, etc., which are each in their turn to be observed
before being removed. In this manner, the different corporeal parts of
the body will be exhibited; but the life of the body is too ethereal
to be distinguished by this process, and its properties must therefore
be learned with the assistance of the explanations of holy medical
practitioners, and prayers offered up to God, by which, conjoined with
the exercise of the reasoning and understanding faculties, conviction
will be certainly obtained.”[272]

The Hindus have been great observers of the natural qualities of
plants, though they have contributed little or nothing to the study
of botany. “The _materia medica_ of the Hindus,” says Hunter,[273]
“embraces a vast collection of drugs belonging to the mineral,
vegetable, and animal kingdoms, many of which have been adopted by
European physicians.” They were ingenious pharmacists, and some
of their directions for the administration of medicines are most
elaborate. They paid scrupulous attention to hygiene, regimen, and diet.

Hindu treatises on medicine inform the physician that man’s
constitution is occasioned by three dispositions born with him—_wadum_,
_pittum_, and _chestum_, or wind, bile, and slime,—and it is the
physician’s business to ascertain which of these predominate in any
individual. These we may call the three morbiferous diatheses. The
pulse is to be felt, not merely at the wrist as we feel it, but in ten
different parts of the body. Some of the descriptions of the pulse are
very curious. Sometimes, they say, it beats as a frog jumps, or as a
creeping rain-worm, or like the motion of a child in a cradle hung in
chains; at other times it is like a fowl when running or as a peacock
when strutting, and so on.

The Yantras or surgical implements known to Susruta were, according to
Professor H. H. Wilson, one hundred and one, and are thus described by
him in his most interesting paper on the “Medical and Surgical Sciences
of the Hindus.”[274]

The instruments were classed as Swastikas, Sandanśas, Tálayantras,
Nádiyantras, Salákás, and Upayantras.

The _Swastikas_ are twenty-four in number; they are metallic, about
eighteen inches long, and fancifully shaped like the beaks of birds,
etc. They were a sort of pincers or forceps.

The _Sandanśas_ were a kind of tongs for removing extraneous substances
from the soft parts.

The _Tálayantras_ were similar, and were used for bringing away foreign
bodies from the ears, nose, etc.

The _Nádiyantras_ were tubular instruments, of which there were twenty
sorts. They were similar to our catheters, syringes, etc. The _Salákás_
were rods and sounds, etc. Of these there were twenty-eight kinds;
some were for removing nasal polypi, so common and so troublesome in
India. The _Upayantras_ were such dressings as cloth, twine, leather,
etc. The first, best, and most important of all implements is declared
to be the _Hand_. The _Man’dalágra_ was a round pointed lancet; the
_Vriddhipatra_ a broad knife; the _Arddhadhárás_ are perhaps knives
with one edge; the _Trikúrchaka_ may be a sort of canular trochar,
with a guarded point. The _Vrihimukha_ is a perforating instrument.
The _Kutháriká_ was probably a bistoury. The _Vadiśa_ is a hooked
or curved instrument for extracting foreign substances, and the
_Dantaśanku_ appears to be an instrument for drawing teeth. The _Ará_
and _Karapatra_ are saws for cutting through bones. The _Eshan’i_ is a
blunt straight instrument six or eight inches long—a sort of probe, in
fact. The _Súchi_ is a needle. Then the Hindu surgeon had substitutes
such as rough leaves that draw blood, pith of trees, skin, leeches,
caustics, etc. It is evident that the surgeon of ancient India was not
inefficiently armed.

The student of surgery had many curious contrivances for acquiring
manual dexterity. He practised the art of making incisions on wax
spread out on a board; on flowers, bulbs, and gourds. Skins or bladders
filled with paste and mire were used for the same purpose. He practised
scarification on the fresh hides of animals from which the hair has
not been removed; puncturing, or lancing the vessels of dead animals;
extraction on the cavities of the same, or fruits with large seeds;
sutures were made on skin and leather, and ligatures and bandages on
well-made models of the human limbs. Fourteen kinds of bandages are
described by Vágbhatta. The cautery was applied by hot seeds, burning
substances, or heated plates and probes. Frequently this treatment was
used for headaches and for liver and spleen disorders. It was chiefly
employed, however, as with the Greeks, for averting bleeding by searing
the mouths of the divided vessels. The early Hindus could extract
stone from the bladder, and even the fœtus from the uterus. They must
have been bold operators, many of their operations being actually
hazardous. It is a subject deserving of inquiry how they lost the
information and skill which they once possessed in so high a degree.
The books of medicine and surgery to which reference has been made are
undoubtedly most ancient, and it must be remembered were considered
as inspired writings. Professor Wilson says: “We must infer that the
existing sentiments of the Hindus are of modern date, growing out of
an altered state of society, and unsupported by their oldest and most
authentic civil and moral, as well as medical institutes.”

Many surgical operations which we consider triumphs of our modern
practice were invented by the ancient Hindus. They were skilled in
amputation, in lithotomy (as we have seen), in abdominal and uterine
operations; they operated for hernia, fistula, and piles, set broken
bones, and had specialists in rhinoplasty or operations for restoring
lost ears and noses. It was a common custom in India for a jealous
husband to mutilate the nose of his suspected wife, so that surgeons
had opportunities to practise this branch of their art. The ancient
Indian surgeons invented an operation for neuralgia which was very
similar to the modern division of the fifth nerve above the eyebrow.
Veterinary science was understood, and ancient treatises exist, says
Hunter,[275] on the diseases of elephants and horses.

The best era of Hindu medicine was from 250 B.C. to 750 A.D. Its
chief centres were found in such Buddhist monastic universities as
that of Nalanda, near Gayá.[276] Hunter thinks it probable that the
ancient Brahmans may have derived their anatomical knowledge from the
dissection of the sacrifices; but there is no doubt that the true
schools of Indian medicine were the great public hospitals which were
established by Buddhist princes like Asoka, famous for his rock edicts,
B.C. 251-249. Amongst the fourteen injunctions inscribed by this
enlightened sovereign, the first was the prohibition of the slaughter
of animals for food or sacrifice, and the second was the provision of a
system of medical aid for men and animals and of plantations and wells
on the roadside.[277]

Probably King Asoka’s were the first real hospitals for general
diseases anywhere established, as the institutions connected with
the Greek temples were not exactly hospitals in our sense of the
term; they were more like camps round a mineral spring or spa. The
Buddhist physicians would have in these merciful institutions abundant
opportunity for the continuous study of disease.

Whatever may have been the condition of ancient Hindu anatomy and
surgery, in modern times both have now fallen to the lowest point.
Dislocated joints are replaced and fractured limbs set by a class
of men similar to our bone-setters which are found in all nations.
Certain of the Mohammedan doctors—_Hakeems_—sometimes bleed and couch
for cataract in a clumsy manner. The village _Kabiráj_ knows but a few
sentences of Sanskrit texts, but he has “a by no means contemptible
pharmacopœia,” says Hunter. The rest consists of spells, fasts, and
quackery.

Physicians (_Vitians_ or _Vydias_) being Sudras are not allowed to read
the sacred medical writings (_Vedas_); these are guarded with religious
awe by the Brahmins; they are permitted, however, access to certain
commentaries upon the professional sacred books.

When we reflect on the high position which the science and art of
the Hindus had attained in very ancient times, it is surprising that
we have apparently learned little or nothing from them in connection
with the healing art. Max Müller believes that there was an ancient
indigenous Hindu astronomy and an ancient indigenous Hindu geometry.
Probably the first attempt at solving the problem of the squaring of
the circle was suggested, he thinks, by the problem in the Sutras
how to construct a square altar that should be of exactly the same
magnitude as a round altar. It is scarcely conceivable that so patient
and shrewd a people as the Hindus, a people at once so observant and
so profoundly speculative, should not have kept pace with the other
enlightened nations of the world in the study of medicine and surgery.
The vegetation of India is so rich in medicinal herbs that its _Materia
Medica_ could hardly be equalled in any other country; so that both by
intellect and by location the Hindus should be amongst the foremost
professors of the art of medicine. On the contrary, however, the West
has everywhere to instruct the East in the medical sciences; and the
young Brahmins who flock to the medical schools and universities
of Europe find that they have everything to learn from us in this
direction. Is this an evidence of arrested development, a retrogression
in civilization due to conservatism and a paralysis of the power to
keep pace with the world’s advance consequent on the influences of
religion and custom? Probably it is. All the medicine of the Hindus
is empiricism; their systems exclude anatomy and surgery, without
which, as Prof. H. H. Wilson observes,[278] “the whole system must
be defective.... We can easily imagine that these were not likely to
have been much cultivated in Hindustan, and that local disadvantages
and religious prejudices might have proved very serious impediments to
their acquirement.”

As compared with other ancient nations, Egypt, Chaldæa, Greece, and
Rome, we are at considerable disadvantage in the attempt to discover
what was known and practised of the healing arts in the remoter ages.
We have no papyri like the “Book of the Dead” or the great medical
papyrus of Ebers; we have no inscriptions on such ancient monuments as
Mesopotamia has preserved for us; we have no Sanskrit treatises to be
compared for their antiquity and scientific interest with those which
have come down to us from ancient Greece.

Max Müller says[279] that “few Sanskrit MSS. in India are older than
1000 after Christ, nor is there any evidence that the art of writing
was known in India much before the beginning of Buddhism, or the very
end of the ancient Vedic literature.”

Then, again, the Hindu treatises on medical subjects, whether fables or
facts, have hitherto been little noticed by Sanskrit scholars.[280]

The subject is not of general interest, and a man would need to be not
only a perfect Sanskrit scholar, but a physician as well, who should
attempt such a task as the translation of these treatises in any useful
manner. Although ancient India has little to show us in the way of
actual written documents and inscriptions, it must not be supposed for
a moment that she is deficient in ancient poetry and other works which
have been preserved through the ages by the marvellously developed
memory of her Brahmins and religious teachers. The ancient Vedic hymns,
the Brâhmanas, and probably the Sutras, were handed down from before
1000 B.C. by oral tradition. Every, the minutest precaution was taken
that not a word, not a letter, not an accent even should be omitted or
altered; and Max Müller tells us “this was a sacred duty, the neglect
of which entailed social degradation, and the most minute rules were
laid down as to the mnemonic system that had to be followed.”

The people of India believe that small-pox is under the control of “the
goddess Mata,” in whose honour temples abound and fairs are held, where
thousands of women and children attend with offerings. The declivities
of most of the numerous conical hills present either a reddened
stone or temple devoted to “Mata,” with most probably an attendant
Brahmin priest. Nearly every village has its goddess of small-pox in
the immediate locality, and in many places a large piece of ground
is esteemed holy and dedicated to “Mata.” The people do not pray to
escape the affliction, unless in seasons when it occurs with more than
ordinary violence. They do, however, petition for a mild visitation.
But even the loss of an eye does not appear to be viewed as a very
serious calamity! “Is there not another eye sufficient for all our
purposes?” questioned one of these stoical philosophers. “If it were
the leg or hand, it would be different, but an eye is immaterial.”[281]

“The small-pox goddess stands with two uplifted crooked daggers,
threatening to strike on the right and left. Before her are a band of
executors of her vengeance. Two of them wear red grinning masks, carry
black shields, and brandish naked scimitars. White lines, like rays,
issue from the bodies of the others, to indicate infection. On the
right there is a group of men with spotted bodies, afflicted with the
malady; bells are hung at their cinctures, and a few of them wave in
their hands black feathers. They are preceded by musicians with drums,
who are supplicating the pity of the furious deity. Behind the goddess,
on the right, there advances a bevy of smiling young women, who are
carrying gracefully on their heads baskets with thanksgiving-offerings,
in gratitude for their lives and their beauty having been spared. There
is, besides, a little boy with a bell at his girdle, who seems to be
conveying something from the right arm of the goddess. This action may
possibly be emblematic of inoculation.”[282]

Another small-pox deity of India described by Mr. Dubois, a
missionary,[283] is Mah-ry-Umma, who is supposed to incarnate herself
in the disease. The natives, when vaccination was first introduced,
objected to the practice for fear lest the goddess should be offended,
as to prevent the small-pox would imply an objection to her becoming
incarnate amongst them. The difficulty was overcome by the suggestion
that the vaccination was a mild form of disease by which the goddess
had chosen to visit her votaries, so that she might be worshipped with
equal respect.

“Even Siva is worshipped as a stone, especially that Siva who will
afflict a child with epileptic fits, and then, speaking by its voice,
will announce that he is Parchânana, the Five-faced, and is punishing
the child for insulting his image.”[284]

Surgeon-General Sir W. J. Moore, in an article on “The Origin and
Progress of Hospitals in India,”[285] says that we may form a very good
opinion of the condition of the whole of India in ancient times by
recalling what was the state of medical relief in most of the native
States previous to the institution of medical relief and sanitation in
British districts.

“Recently, in the Native States, there might be witnessed disease
proceeding unchecked and uninterfered with, to a degree which certainly
would not be allowed at present in civilized Europe. And especially
was this evident in surgical disease, as illustrated by the following
extract from an official document:[286]—

“‘In former reports I have mentioned the extreme ignorance displayed
by native “hukeems” or “vaids” of surgical principles. As a rule,
all surgical disease is either wrongly treated, or let alone until
treatment is unavailable by these uneducated practitioners. Their
errors of omission and commission are not so easily ascertained in
their medical, as in their surgical, practice. But in the latter,
there is a glaring ignorance, not only from things requisite not being
attempted, but from things unnecessary being performed, leading to the
serious injury and often to the death of the patient. Thus, during my
last tour, I saw at one village, an open scrofulous sore of the neck
with the carotid artery isolated, and apparently on the point of giving
way. At another village I witnessed an advanced cancer rapidly killing
a man. In another place a woman had remained for days with a dislocated
jaw, which was easily put _in situ_. Other forms of dislocation and
fracture neglected are almost daily sights. At Bikaneer I amputated
the leg of a man who eight months before fell from a camel; the bones
of the leg protruding through the skin of the heel, and the foot being
driven half-way up the front of the leg, _in which position it had been
permitted to heal_! At the same place a woman was rapidly sinking from
the results of extensive sinus of the breast, following abscess, and
which only required free incisions for the restoration of health. I
also saw a man dying of strangulated hernia, without the slightest idea
of or attempt at relief on the part of the native practitioners. And so
on, throughout almost the whole range of surgery, I have from time to
time witnessed the most lamentable results from the malpractices, or
from the absence of practice on the part of the Native Doctors.’

“As mentioned in the above extract, the errors of omission and
commission are not so easily ascertained in medical as in surgical
cases. But the great majority of those stricken by disease, such as
inflammations and fevers, derived as little benefit from medicine as
did the Romans when, according to Pliny, physicians were banished from
the Imperial City during many years. For few indeed of the higher
class and comparatively better educated ‘hukeems’ or ‘vaids’ would
minister to the poor who were unable to pay their fees; and of the
populations of India the great majority are and always were poor.
Steeped in continually augmenting superstition and ignorance, if the
poor received medical aid at all, it was from the hands of the equally
ignorant and superstitious village ‘Kabiraj,’ who, unlike their more
noble Aryan predecessors, did not even ‘draw physic from the fields,’
although they may have used a charm, such as a peacock’s feather tied
round the affected part! If the poor got well, they got well; and as
most diseases have a tendency to terminate in health, many did recover.
If a fatal termination resulted, it was attributed to _nusseeb_ or
destiny, or the gods were blamed. Insane persons, if harmless, were
allowed to ramble about the streets; if violent, they were chained in
the most convenient place. The jails of the Native States were also in
an unparalleled unsanitary condition, for no medical aid whatever was
provided; as Coleridge said of Coldbath Fields, these jails might have
given His Satanic Majesty a hint for improving Hades. Fatalism combined
with ignorance, and a consequent utter unbelief in any measures of
sanitation, resulted in the absence of all measures of precaution
during epidemics of contagious disease. During the prevalence of
small-pox, children might be seen by scores, in every stage of the
disease, playing or lying about the streets. During an epidemic of
cholera, not one precautionary measure was ever adopted—except by the
wild Bheels, who invariably moved, leaving their villages for a time
for the open jungle; thus forestalling the most approved method of
preventing cholera adopted for British troops, viz., marching away from
the infected area.

“Not only were there no hospitals proper, or contagious hospitals,
or asylums for the insane, but neither were there any asylums for
lepers. Regarding the latter, difference of opinion would appear to
have existed among scientific investigators, then as now, as to whether
leprosy is a contagious disease or not. Then as now, in some parts of
the country, lepers were permitted to live among the people; in other
localities they were thrust out from the towns or villages, generally
forming a little colony on the adjoining plain. This expulsion of
lepers from the towns and villages, then as now, was not so much the
result of fear of contagion, as the Brahminical dread of contact with
impurity. Then as now, these outcasts lived miserably in mud or grass
huts, obtaining food by begging. When tired of life, or when being
old or disabled their relatives were tired of keeping them, they
often submitted to ‘sumajh’ or burial alive. But they more frequently
threatened to perform ‘sumajh’ with the view of extracting alms from
the charitable, who were induced to believe that the death of the
leper would be credited to them, unless they bought off the sacrifice.
‘Sumajh,’ or leper burial alive, has been practised comparatively
recently in more than one of the Native States.

“The Native principalities are now much more advanced in most respects
than they were only a few years back. By coming into contact with
the progressive civilization of adjoining British districts, the
Governments of Native States were forced to advance; for they felt
their existence would be imperilled. And this advance was most
materially assisted by the successful endeavours made by the Indian
Government to secure the better education of the young Indian princes
and nobles. The Imperial Government also, and especially under Lord
Mayo, enunciated care for the sick as one of the most urgent duties of
the feudatory rulers of India. Owing to such measures, aided by the
personal influence of the Political, and the assistance of the Medical
Officers attached to the Native Courts, a hospital or dispensary has,
amongst other features of civilization, been established at every
large capital; while in some States ramifications of such central
establishments have rendered the people almost as well off, in the
matter of medical relief, as those in British territory. As it will not
be necessary to refer again, except incidentally, to the Native States,
I may here remark that all the medical institutions are supported at
the cost of the Durbar or Government of each State. They are, as a
rule, superintended by the European Medical Officer attached to the
Political Residency, aided by native assistants.

“Although the recent condition of the Native States represents what
formerly prevailed all over Hindustan, it must not be understood that
the people were devoid of charity; only the charity of the well-to-do
classes did not take the form of medical relief. In the absence of a
qualified medical profession recognised by the State, the confidence
felt in the physic of the ‘vaids’ and ‘hukeems’ was something akin to
the faith of Byron, who without any such excuse designated medicine
as ‘the destructive art of healing.’ Moreover, the organization of
hospitals was not understood, and the necessary discipline of such
establishments was foreign to the habits and ideas of the people. The
poor (who now throng the hospitals of India), having had no experience
of the advantages of such institutions, would probably not have
resorted thereto had hospitals and dispensaries been opened under
native control. So suspicious were the people on the first opening of
a hospital in one of the Native States, that sweetmeats, of which they
are very fond, were ordered to be given daily to each patient, as an
encouragement to attend! So in former times the charitable preferred
spending their money in sinking wells, in constructing _serais_ or
rest-houses for travellers, in endowing temples, and in feeding the
poor, particularly Brahmins. In this manner, enormous sums have been
disbursed and are still expended, especially in food for the destitute.
This laudable charity of the Indians, although often confined to their
own caste people, and to occasions of family festival, is one of the
reasons why it has never been thought necessary to establish any system
of poor-law relief in British India. Of late years native charity has
been often directed towards building and endowing medical institutions,
and many Indian gentlemen have given most liberally for such purposes.”




CHAPTER V.

MEDICINE IN CHINA, TARTARY, AND JAPAN.

 Origin of Chinese Culture.—Shamanism.—Disease-Demons.—Taoism.—Medicine
 Gods.—Mediums.—Anatomy and Physiology of the Chinese.—Surgery.—No
 Hospitals in China.—Chinese Medicines.—Filial Piety.—Charms and Sacred
 Signs.—Medicine in Thibet, Tartary, and Japan.


Chief amongst the Mongolian peoples are the Chinese. Prof. Max Müller
argues that the Chinese, the Thibetans, the Japanese, Coreans, and the
Ural-Altaic or Turanian nations are in the matter of religion closely
related.

Chinese culture has recently been declared by Professor Terrien de
la Couperie, François Lenormant, and Sayce to be of Accadian origin.
Hieratic Accadian has been identified with the first five hundred
Chinese characters, and it is believed by Professor de la Couperie
that the Chinese entered north-western China from Susiana, about the
twenty-third century before Christ.[287]

In the Finno-Tartarian magical mythology, we have not only the link
which connects the religion of heathen Finland with that of Accadian
Chaldæa, but we discover what is of more importance in tracing the
origin of the magic and medicine of the old civilizations of the world
from a primitive and coarse cosmogony, such as we have examined in so
many savage peoples.

As it is impossible to separate the ancient medical belief of a people
from its religious conceptions, if we admit Prof. Max Müller’s theory,
we must also hold that it embraces the medical notions of these
peoples. And so we find that one of the striking characteristics of
the Mongolic religions is an extensive magic and sorcery—Shamanism.
Practically the gods and heroes of the poetry of these peoples are
sorcerers, and their worshippers value above everything their magical
powers. Taoism, a Chinese religion of great antiquity and respect,
involves an implicit faith in sorcery; and the Chinese and Mongolians
have degenerated Buddhism into Shamanism.[288]

Confucianism is the chief religion of the Chinese. It is simply a
development of the worship of ancestors, which was the aboriginal
religion of the country. All the Chinese are ancestor-worshippers, to
whatever other native religion they may belong.[289]

The pure Confucian is a true Agnostic.

Although Chinese civilization is without doubt extremely ancient, we
are unable to study it as we study that of Egypt or Chaldæa, on account
of the absence of monuments or a literature older than a few centuries
before Christ, which would give us a reliable history.

The Chinese attribute to Huang-ti (B.C. 2637) a work on medicine, which
is still extant, entitled Nuy-kin, which is probably not older than the
Christian era. They also attribute to the Emperor Chin-nung (B.C. 2699)
a catalogue of medicinal herbs.[290]

The demon theory of disease universally obtains throughout the Chinese
empire. All bodily and mental disorders spring either from the air or
spirits. They are sent by the gods as punishments for sins committed in
a previous state of existence. In a country where Buddhism is largely
believed, it is natural to suppose that there is little sympathy with
the suffering and afflicted. One might offend the gods by getting
cured, or delay the working out of the effects of the expiatory
suffering. Archdeacon Grey found a grievously afflicted monk in a
monastery in the White Cloud mountains. He desired to take him to the
Canton Medical Missionary Hospital; but the abbot took him aside, and
begged him not to do so, as the sufferer had doubtless in a former
state of existence been guilty of some heinous crime, for which the
gods were then making him pay the well-merited penalty.[291]

Nevertheless, when sick, the Chinese often have recourse to some
deity, who is supposed to have caused the illness. If the patient
dies, they do not blame the god, but they withhold the thank-offering
which is customary in case of recovery. The death is declared to be in
accordance with the “_reckoning of Heaven_.” If the patient recovers,
the deity of the disease gets the credit. Prayers and ceremonies are
made use of to induce the “destroying” demon to banish the baneful
influences under his control. Sudden illness is frequently ascribed
to the evil influence of one of the seventy-two malignant spirits or
gods. In very urgent cases an “arrow” is obtained from an idol in the
temple. This “arrow” is about two feet long, and has a single written
word, “Command,” upon it. If the patient recovers, it must be returned
to the temple with a present; if he dies, an offering of mock-money
is made. The “arrow” is considered as the warrant of the god for the
disease-spirit to depart.[292]

In L’ien-chow, in the province of Kwang-si, if a man hits his foot
against a stone, and afterwards falls sick, it is at once recognised
that there was a demon in the stone; and the man’s friends accordingly
go to the place where the accident happened, and endeavour to appease
the demon with offerings of rice, wine, incense, and worship. After
this the patient recovers.[293]

Sometimes it is difficult to find out what particular god has been
offended. Then some member of his family asks, with a stick of
burning incense in his hand, that the offended deity will make known
by the mouth of the patient how he has been offended. The disease is
sometimes, as amongst savage nations, ascribed to the spirit of a
deceased person. The god of medicine is invited to the sick man’s house
in cases where malignant sores or inflamed eyes are prevalent. Ten men
sometimes become “security” for the sick person. After offerings and
ceremonies, the names of the ten are written upon paper, and burned
before the idol. When a patient is likely to die, the last resort is to
employ Tauist priests to pray for him, and then the following ceremony
is performed:—A bamboo, eight or ten feet long, with green leaves at
the end, is provided, and a coat belonging to the sick man is suspended
with a mirror in the place where the head of the wearer of the coat
would be. The priest repeats his incantations, to induce the sick man’s
spirit to enter the coat, as it is supposed that the patient’s spirit
is leaving the body or has been hovering near it. The incantations are
to induce the spirit to enter the coat, so that the owner may wear both
together. Sometimes the family will hire a Tauist priest to climb a
ladder of knives, and perform ceremonies for the recovery of the sick
man. This is thought to have a great effect on the disease-spirits.[294]

The Emperor _Fuh-Hi_, who invented the eight diagrams, was the first
physician whose name has come down to modern times. He is one of the
_Sang Huông_, or “Three Emperors,” and is the deity of doctors.

_I Kuang Tāi Uông_ is the god of surgery. The people say he was a
foreigner, of the Loochoo Islands, who came to the middle kingdom and
practised surgery. As he was deaf whilst in the flesh, his worshippers
consider he is thus afflicted now that he is a deity, so they pray into
his ear, as well as offer him incense and candles.[295]

_Ling Chui Nä_ is the goddess of midwifery and children. If children
are sick, their parents employ Tauist priests in some of her temples to
perform a ceremony for their cure.[296]

_Iöh Uong Chû Sü_ is the god of medicine. It is said that he was a
distinguished physician who was deified after his death. He is now
generally worshipped by dealers in drugs and by their assistants. On
the third day of the third month, they make a feast in his honour, and
burn candles and incense before his image at his temple. Practising
physicians do not usually take any part in these proceedings.[297]

The Chinese have goddesses of small-pox and measles, which are
extremely popular divinities. Should it thunder after the pustules of
small-pox have appeared, a drum is beaten, to prevent them breaking.
On the fourteenth day ceremonies are performed before the goddess, to
induce her to cause the pustules to dry up.[298]

Mediums are often employed to prescribe for the sick. They behave
precisely as our spiritualists do, and pretend that the divinity
invoked casts himself into the medium for the time being, and dictates
the medicine which the sick person requires.[299]

In the “Texts of Táoism”[300] we are informed that “In the body there
are seven precious organs, which serve to enrich the state, to give
rest to the people, and to make the vital force of the system full to
overflowing. Hence we have the heart, the kidneys, the breath, the
blood, the brains, the semen, and the marrow. These are the seven
precious organs. They are not dispersed when the body returns (to the
dust). Refined by the use of the Great Medicine, the myriad spirits all
ascend among the Immortals.”

Anatomy and physiology have made no progress in China, because there
has never been any dissection of the body. The only books on the
subject in the Chinese language are Jesuit translations of European
works. Briefly stated, Chinese ideas on the subject are as follows:—In
the human body there are six chief organs in which “moisture” is
located—the heart, liver, two kidneys, spleen, and lungs. There are
six others in which “warmth” abides—the small and large intestine, the
gall bladder, the stomach, and the urinary apparatus. They reckon 365
bones in the whole body, eight in the male and six in the female skull,
twelve ribs in men and fourteen in women. They term the bile the seat
of courage; the spleen, the seat of reason; the liver, the granary of
the soul; the stomach, the resting-place of the mind.

A familiar drug in Chinese materia medica, which is sold in all the
drug-shops, is the Kou-Kouo, or bean of St. Ignatius. The horny
vegetable is used, after bruising and macerating, in cold water,
to which it communicates a strong bitter taste. “This water,” says
M. Huc,[301] “taken inwardly, modifies the heat of the blood, and
extinguishes internal inflammation. It is an excellent specific for all
sorts of wounds and contusions.... The veterinary doctors also apply
it with great success to the internal diseases of cattle and sheep. In
the north of China we have often witnessed the salutary effects of the
Kou-Kouo.”

This bean is the seed of _Strychnos Ignatia_, and the plant is
indigenous to the Philippine Islands. The action and uses of ignatia
are identical, says Stillé, with those of nux vomica.[302]

The medical profession is a very crowded one in China, as it is
perfectly free to any who choose to practise it. No diploma or
certificate of any kind is necessary in order to practise medicine
in China. The majority of the regular practitioners, if such they
can be called, are men who have failed to pass their examinations as
literates. There is one, and apparently only one, check on quackery.
The Chinese have a special place in their second hell which is reserved
for ignorant physicians who will persist in doctoring sick folk. In
the fourth hell are found physicians who have used bad drugs, and
in the seventh hell are tortured those who have taken human bones
from cemeteries to make into medicines. In the very lowest hell are
physicians who have misused their art for criminal purposes. These evil
persons are ceaselessly gored by sows.[303]

Naturally, the sciences of anatomy and physiology are entirely
neglected by these self-constituted native doctors. All the learning
they require is the ability to copy out prescriptions from a medical
book. Dr. Gould, a physician of long experience in China, tells us that
the native physician is depicted in Chinese primers as a person between
the heathen priest and the fortune-teller—his profession is looked upon
as a combination of superstition and legerdemain.[304]

The court physicians at Pekin are of a much superior class, and are
compelled to pass examinations before their appointment.

Astrology, charms, amulets, and characts enter largely into Chinese
medical practice. The priests keep bundles of paper charms ready for
emergencies. They are supposed to know which of the different methods
of using them are most appropriate to each case. Masks are used by
children at certain times to ward off the deity of small-pox. The
masks are very ugly, as the deity is believed only to afflict pretty
children.[305]

“Isaac Vossius,” says Southey, “commended the skill of the Chinese
physicians in finding out by their touch, not only that the body is
diseased (which, he said, was all that our practitioners knew by it),
but also from what cause or what part the sickness proceeds. To make
ourselves masters of this skill, he would have us explore the nature of
men’s pulses, till they became as well known and as familiar to us as a
harp or lute is to the players thereon; it not being enough for them to
know that there is something amiss which spoils the tune, but they must
also know what string it is which causes that fault.”[306]

Surgery has never made much progress in China; the Chinese have too
much respect for the dead to employ corpses for anatomical purposes,
and they have the greatest unwillingness to draw blood or perform any
kind of operation on the living. Their ideas of the structure of the
human frame are therefore purely fanciful. “The distinctive Chinese
surgical invention is acupuncture, or the insertion of fine needles of
hardened silver or gold for an inch or more (with a twisting motion)
into the seats of pain or inflammation.”[307] Rheumatism and gout
are thus treated, and 367 points are specified where needles may be
inserted without injury to great vessels or vital organs.

Dentistry and ophthalmic surgery are practised by specialists.

There are no hospitals; the Chinese consider it would be a neglect
of the duty which they owe to their relatives to send them when sick
to such institutions. Chinese doctors often receive a fixed salary
so long as their patient remains in good health; when he falls sick,
the pay is stopped till he gets well. The doctor must ask his patient
no questions, nor does the patient volunteer any information about
his case. Having felt the sick man’s pulse, looked at his tongue, and
otherwise observed him, he is supposed to have completed his diagnosis,
and must prescribe accordingly. Some of the Chinese prescriptions are
very costly; precious stones and jewels are often powdered up with
musk and made into pills, which are considered specifics for small-pox
and fevers. Another remedy is _Kiuchiu_, a bitter wine made of spirit,
aloes, myrrh, frankincense, and saffron, which is said to be a powerful
tonic. The profession of medicine is hereditary, receiving very few
recruits from outside; hence its complete stagnation.[308]

One of the industries of the Foo-Chow beggars is the rearing of
snakes, which are used by the druggists to prepare their medicines.
Snake-wine is used as a febrifuge, and snake’s flesh is considered a
nutritious diet for invalids. Skulls, paws, horns, and skins of many
animals, as bears, bats, crocodiles and tigers, are used in medicine.
For fever patients physicians prescribe a decoction of scorpions,
while dysentery is treated by acupuncture of the tongue. Pigeon’s dung
is the favourite medicine for women in pregnancy; and the water in
which cockles have been boiled is prescribed for skin diseases, and
for persons who are recovering from small-pox. Rat’s flesh is eaten
as a hair-restorer, and human milk is given to aged persons as a
restorative. Crab’s liver administered in decoction of pine shavings
is used in a form of skin disease. In Gordon Cumming’s _Wanderings in
China_, from which many of the above facts are taken, it is stated that
“dried red-spotted lizard, silk-worm moth, parasite of mulberry trees,
asses’s glue, tops of hartshorn, black-lead, white-lead, stalactite,
asbestos, tortoise-shell, stag-horns and bones, dog’s flesh and ferns
are all recommended as tonics.” Burnt straw, oyster shells, gold
and silver leaf, and the bones and tusks of dragons are said to be
astringent. These dragons’ bones are the fossil remains of extinct
animals. Some of the medicines of standard Chinese works are selected
purely on account of their loathsomeness, such as the ordure of all
sorts of animals, from man down to goats, rabbits, and silk-worm, dried
leeches, human blood, dried toads, shed skins of snakes, centipedes,
tiger’s blood, and other horrors innumerable hold a conspicuous place
in the Chinese pharmacopœia. Nor, says Gordon Cumming, are these the
worst. The physicians say that some diseases are incurable save by a
broth made of human flesh cut from the arm or thigh of a living son or
daughter of the patient.[309]

The same author tells us that a young girl who so mutilated herself
to save her mother’s life was specially commended in the _Official
Gazette_ of Peking for July 5th, 1870.

Medicines prepared from the eyes and vitals of the dead are supposed
to be efficacious. Leprosy is believed to be curable by drinking the
blood of a healthy infant. Dr. Macarthy and Staff-Surgeon Rennie were
present at an execution in Peking, when they saw the executioner soak
up the blood of the decapitated criminal with large balls of pith,
which he preserved. These are dried and sold to the druggists under
the name of “shue-man-tou” (blood-bread), which is prescribed for a
disease called “chong-cheng,” which Dr. Rennie supposed to be pulmonary
consumption.[310]

The _Times_ says (October 10th, 1892) that the character of the
accusations made in the publications against Europeans has created as
much astonishment amongst the foreign residents in China as it has in
the West. Missionaries especially were charged—and the charges have
been made frequently during the past thirty years—with bewitching women
and children by means of drugs, enticing them to some secret place, and
there killing them for the purpose of taking out their hearts and eyes.
Dr. Macgowan, a gentleman who has lived for many years in China, has
published a statement showing that from the point of view of Chinese
medicine these accusations are far from preposterous. It is one of the
medical superstitions of China that various portions of the human frame
and all its secretions possess therapeutic properties. He refers to a
popular voluminous Materia Medica—the only authoritative work of the
kind in the Chinese language—which gives thirty-seven anthropophagous
remedies of native medicine. Human blood taken into the system from
another is believed to strengthen it; and Dr. Macgowan mentions the
case of an English lady, now dead, who devoted her fortune and life
to the education of girls in Ningpo, who was supposed by the natives
to extract the blood of her pupils for this purpose. Human muscles
are supposed to be a good medicament in consumption, and cases are
constantly recorded of children who mutilate themselves to administer
their flesh to sick parents.

Never, says Dr. Macgowan, has filial piety exhibited its zeal in this
manner more than at the present time. Imperial decrees published in
the _Pekin Gazette_, often authorising honorary portals to be erected
in honour of men, and particularly women, for these flesh offerings,
afford no indication of the extent to which it is carried, for only
people of wealth and influence can obtain such a recognition of the
merit of filial devotion. It is very common among the comparatively
lowly, but more frequent among the _literati_. A literary graduate
now in his own service, finding the operation of snipping a piece of
integument from his arm too painful, seized a hatchet and cut off
a joint of one of his fingers, which he made into broth mixed with
medicine and gave to his mother. It is essential in all such cases that
the recipient should be kept in profound ignorance of the nature of the
potion thus prepared, and in no case is the operation to be performed
for an inferior, as by a husband for a wife, or a parent for a child.
This belief in the medical virtues of part of the human body (of which
a large number of instances which cannot be repeated here are given)
has led to a demand from native practitioners which can sometimes only
be supplied by murder. Of this, too, examples are given from official
records and other publications, some of them of quite recent date.

Dr. Macgowan reminds us that men capable of these atrocities have been
found in other civilized lands. He says:—

“It was in a model Occidental city, not inaptly styled the ‘Modern
Athens,’ that subjects were procured for the dissecting-room through
murder, at about the same amount of money as that paid in China
for sets of eyes and hearts for medicine. A remedy was found which
promptly suppressed that exceptional crime in the West. In China murder
of this nature can also be prevented, but not speedily. Time is an
indispensable factor in effecting the suppression of homicide, which
is the outcome of medical superstition. That superstition is strongly
intrenched in an official work, the most common book, after the
classics, in the empire. So long as the concluding chapter is retained
in the materia medica, it will be futile to undertake the abolition
of murder for medical purposes; and so long as these abhorrent crimes
prevail in China, so long will fomenters of riots against foreigners
aim to make it appear that the men and women from afar are addicted
to that form of murder, and thus precious lives will continue to be
exposed to forfeiture.”

The most celebrated drug in Chinese Materia Medica is ginseng, the root
of a species of _Panax_, belonging to the natural order _Araliacæ_. The
most esteemed variety is found in Corea; an inferior kind comes from
the United States, the _Panax quinquefolium_, and is often substituted
for the real article. All the Chinese ginseng is Imperial property,
and is sold at its weight in gold. The peculiar shape of the root,
like the body of man—a peculiarity which it shares with mandrake and
some other plants—led to its employment in cases where virile power
fails, as in the aged and debilitated. Special kinds have been sold
at the enormous sum of 300 to 400 dollars the ounce. Europeans have
hitherto failed, says the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, to discover any
wonderful properties in the drug. It is no doubt a remarkable instance
of the doctrine of signatures (_q.v._). In all cases of severe disease,
debility, etc., the Chinese fly to this remedy, so that enormous
quantities are used. The Hon. H. N. Shore, R.N., says that the export
from New-Chang in Manchuria to the Chinese ports of this article for
one year alone reached the value of £51,000. It seems to be simply a
mild tonic, very much like gentian root. Some of the pharmacies are on
a very large scale; six hundred and fifty various kinds of leaves are
commonly kept for medicinal purposes.

When a Chinese physician is not able to procure the medicines he needs,
he writes the names of the drugs he desires to employ on a piece of
paper, and makes the patient swallow it; the effect is supposed to
be quite as good as that of the remedy itself, and certainly in many
cases it would be infinitely more pleasant to take! This custom of
swallowing charms is seen again in the sick-room, some of the charms
which are stuck round it being occasionally taken down, burned, and
mixed with water, which the patient has to drink. Gongs are beaten and
fire-crackers let off to frighten away the demons which are supposed to
be tormenting the sick person.

“The superstition as to the powers of the ‘evil eye,’” says Denny,[311]
“may almost be deemed fundamental to humanity, as I have yet to read
of a people amongst whom it does not find some degree of credence.”
In China a pregnant woman, or a man whose wife is pregnant, is called
“four-eyed”; and children are guarded against being looked at by
either, as it would probably cause sickness to attack them.

One of the commonest diagrams to be met with in China is the mystic
_svastika_, or “Thor’s Hammer” 卍. It is found on the wrappers of
medicines, and is accepted as the accumulation of lucky signs
possessing ten thousand virtues.[312]

The physicians of Thibet, says M. Huc,[313] assign to the human body
four hundred and forty diseases, neither more nor less. Lamas who
practise medicine have to learn by heart the books which treat of these
diseases, their symptoms, and the method of curing them. The books
are a mere hotch-potch of aphorisms and recipes. The Lama doctors
have less horror of blood than the Chinese, and practise bleeding and
cupping. They pay great attention to the examination of a patient’s
water. A thoroughly competent Lama physician must be able to diagnose
the disease and treat the patient without seeing him. It is sufficient
that he make a careful examination of the water. This he does not by
chemical tests, as in Western nations, but by whipping it up with
a wooden knife and listening to the noise made by the bubbles. A
patient’s water is mute or crackling according to his state of health.
Much of Chinese and Tartar medicine is mere superstition. “Yet,” says
M. Huc very judiciously, “notwithstanding all this quackery, there is
no doubt that they possess an infinite number of very valuable recipes,
the result of long experience. It were perhaps rash to imagine that
medical science has nothing to learn from the Tartar, Thibetian, and
Chinese physicians, on the pretext that they are not acquainted with
the structure and mechanism of the human body. They may, nevertheless,
be in possession of very important secrets, which science alone, no
doubt, is capable of explaining, but which, very possibly, science
itself may never discover. Without being scientific, a man may very
well light upon extremely scientific results.” The fact that everybody
in China and Tartary can make gunpowder, while probably none of the
makers can chemically explain its composition and action is a proof of
this fact.

M. Huc says that every Mongol knows the name and position of all the
bones which compose the frame of animals. They are exceedingly skilful
anatomists, and are well acquainted with the diseases of animals, and
the best means of curing them. They administer medicines to beasts by
means of a cow-horn used as a funnel, and even employ enemas in their
diseases. The cow-horn serves for the pipe, and a bladder fixed on
the wide end acts as a pump when squeezed. They make punctures and
incisions in various parts of the body of animals. Although their skill
as anatomists and veterinary surgeons is so great, they have only the
simplest and rudest tools wherewith to exercise this art.

“Medicine in Tartary,” says M. Huc,[314] “is exclusively practised
by the Lamas. When illness attacks any one, his friends run to the
nearest monastery for a Lama, whose first proceeding, upon visiting
the patient, is to run his fingers over the pulse of both wrists
simultaneously, as the fingers of a musician run over the strings of
an instrument. The Chinese physicians feel both pulses also, but in
succession. After due deliberation, the Lama pronounces his opinion
as to the particular nature of the malady. According to the religious
belief of the Tartars, all illness is owing to the visitation of a
Tchutgour, or demon; but the expulsion of the demon is first a matter
of medicine. The Lama physician next proceeds, as Lama apothecary, to
give the specific befitting the case; the Tartar pharmacopœia rejecting
all mineral chemistry, the Lama remedies consist entirely of vegetables
pulverised, and either infused in water or made up into pills. If the
Lama doctor happens not to have any medicine with him, he is by no
means disconcerted; he writes the names of the remedies upon little
scraps of paper, moistens the paper with his saliva, and rolls them
up into pills, which the patient tosses down with the same perfect
confidence as though they were genuine medicaments. To swallow the name
of a remedy, or the remedy itself, say the Tartars, comes to precisely
the same thing.

“The medical assault of the usurping demon being applied, the Lama next
proceeds to spiritual artillery, in the form of prayers, adapted to the
quality of the demon who has to be dislodged. If the patient is poor,
the Tchutgour visiting him can evidently only be an inferior Tchutgour,
requiring merely a brief, offhand prayer, sometimes merely an
interjectional exorcism. If the patient is very poor, the Lama troubles
himself with neither prayer nor pill, but goes away, recommending the
friends to wait with patience until the sick patient gets better or
dies, according to the decree of Hormoustha. But where the patient is
rich, the possessor of large flocks, the proceedings are altogether
different. First it is obvious that a devil who presumes to visit so
eminent a personage must be a potent devil, one of the chiefs of the
lower world; and it would not be decent for a great Tchutgour to travel
like a mere sprite; the family, accordingly, are directed to prepare
for him a handsome suit of clothes, a pair of rich boots, a fine horse,
ready saddled and bridled, otherwise the devil will never think of
going, physic or exorcise him how you may. It is even possible, indeed,
that one horse will not suffice; for the demon, in very rich cases, may
turn out upon inquiry to be so high and mighty a prince, that he has
with him a number of courtiers and attendants, all of whom have to be
provided with horses.

“Everything being arranged, the ceremony commences. The Lama and
numerous co-physicians called in from his own and other adjacent
monasteries, offer up prayers in the rich man’s tents for a week or
a fortnight, until they perceive that the devil is gone,—that is to
say, until they have exhausted all the disposable tea and sheep. If
the patient recovers, it is a clear proof that the prayers have been
efficaciously recited; if he dies, it is a still greater proof of the
efficaciousness of the prayers, for not only is the devil gone, but
the patient has transmigrated to a state far better than that he has
quitted.

“The prayers recited by the Lamas for the recovery of the sick are
sometimes accompanied with very dismal and alarming rites. The aunt of
Tokoura, chief of an encampment in the Valley of Dark Waters, visited
by M. Huc, was seized one evening with an intermittent fever. ‘I would
invite the attendance of the doctor Lama,’ said Tokoura, ‘but if he
finds there is a very big Tchutgour present, the expenses will ruin
me.’ He waited for some days, but as his aunt grew worse and worse, he
at last sent for a Lama; his anticipations were confirmed. The Lama
pronounced that a demon of considerable rank was present, and that no
time must be lost in expelling him. Eight other Lamas were forthwith
called in, who at once set about the construction in dried herbs of a
great puppet, which they entitled the Demon of Intermittent Fever, and
which, when completed, they placed on its legs by means of a stick, in
the patient’s tent.

“The ceremony began at eleven o’clock at night; the Lamas ranged
themselves in a semicircle round the upper portion of the tent with
cymbals, sea-shells, bells, tambourines, and other instruments of the
noisy Tartar music. The remainder of the circle was completed by the
members of the family squatting on the ground close to one another, the
patient kneeling, or rather crouched on her heels, opposite the Demon
of Intermittent Fever. The Lama doctor in chief had before him a large
copper basin filled with millet, and some little images made of paste.
The dung-fuel threw amid much smoke a fantastic and quivering light
over the strange scene. Upon a given signal, the clerical orchestra
executed an overture harsh enough to frighten Satan himself, the lay
congregation beating time with their hands to the charivari of clanging
instruments and ear-splitting voices. The diabolical concert over,
the Grand Lama opened the Book of Exorcisms, which he rested on his
knees. As he chanted one of the forms, he took from the basin from time
to time a handful of millet, which he threw east, west, north, and
south, according to the Rubric. The tones of his voice as he prayed
were sometimes mournful and suppressed, sometimes vehemently loud
and energetic. All of a sudden he would quit the regular cadence of
prayer, and have an outburst of apparently indomitable rage, abusing
the herb puppet with fierce invectives and furious gestures. The
exorcism terminated, he gave a signal by stretching out his arms right
and left, and the other Lamas struck up a tremendously noisy chorus
in hurried, dashing tones. All the instruments were set to work, and
meantime the lay congregation, having started up with one accord, ran
out of the tent one after the other, and tearing round it like mad
people, beat it at their hardest with sticks, yelling all the while at
the pitch of their voices in a manner to make ordinary hair stand on
end. Having thrice performed this demoniac round, they re-entered the
tent as precipitately as they had quitted it, and resumed their seats.
Then, all the others covering their faces with their hands, the Grand
Lama rose and set fire to the herb figure. As soon as the flames rose
he uttered a loud cry, which was repeated with interest by the rest of
the company. The laity immediately arose, seized the burning figure,
carried it into the plain, away from the tents, and there, as it
consumed, anathematized it with all sorts of imprecations; the Lamas,
meantime, squatted in the tent, tranquilly chanting their prayers in a
grave, solemn tone. Upon the return of the family from their valorous
expedition, the praying was exchanged for joyous felicitations.
By-and-by each person provided with a lighted torch, the whole party
rushed simultaneously from the tent, and formed into a procession, the
laymen first, then the patient, supported on either side by a member
of the family, and lastly, the nine Lamas, making night hideous with
their music. In this style the patient was conducted to another tent,
pursuant to the orders of the Lama, who declared she must absent
herself from her own habitation for an entire month.

“After this strange treatment the malady did not return. The
probability is that the Lamas, having ascertained the precise moment
at which the fever-fit would recur, met it at the exact point of time
by this tremendous counter-excitement and overcame it.

“Though the majority of the Lamas seek to foster the ignorant credulity
of the Tartars, in order to turn it to their own profit, we have met
some of them who frankly avowed that duplicity and imposture played
considerable part in all their ceremonies. The superior of a Lamasery
said to us one day, ‘When a person is ill the recitation of prayers is
proper, for Buddha is the master of life and death; it is he who rules
the transmigration of beings. To take remedies is also fitting, for the
great virtue of medicinal herbs also comes to us from Buddha. That the
Evil One may possess a rich person is credible; but that in order to
repel the Evil One, the way is to give him dress, and a horse, and what
not, this is a fiction invented by ignorant and deceiving Lamas, who
desire to accumulate wealth at the expense of their brothers.’”

M. Huc describes a grand solemnity he witnessed in Tartary, when a
Lama Boktè cut himself open, took out his entrails, placed them before
him, and then after returning them, closed the wound while the blood
flowed in every direction; yet he was apparently as well as before
the operation, with the exception of extreme prostration. Good Lamas,
says M. Huc, abhor such diabolical miracles; it is only those of bad
character who perform them. The good priest describes several other
“supernaturalisms,” as he calls them, of a similar kind, which are
frequently performed by the Lamas. He sets them all down to diabolical
agency.[315]

The Turanian nations have their priests of magic, says M. Maury,[316]
who exercise great power over the people. He thinks this is partly due
to the pains they take to look savage and imposing, but still more to
the over-excited condition in which they are kept by the rites to which
they have recourse; they take stimulants and probably drugs to cause
hallucinations, convulsions, and dreams, for they are the dupes of
their own delirium.

“Amongst all nations,” says Castrèn, “of whatever race, disease is
always regarded as a possession, and as the work of a demon.”[317]

Says M. Maury: “The Baschkirs have their Shaitan-kuriazi, who expel
devils, and undertake to treat the invalids regarded as possessed by
means of the administration of certain remedies. This Shaitan, whose
name has been borrowed from the Satan of the Christians, since the
Baschkirs have come into contact with the Russians, is held by the
Kalmuks to be the chief author of all our bodily sufferings. If they
wish to expel him, they must resort not only to conjurations, but also
to cunning. The aleyss places his offerings before the sick man, as if
they were intended for the wicked spirit; it being supposed that the
demon, attracted by their number or their value, will leave the body
which he is tormenting in order to seize upon the new spoil. According
to the Tcheremisses, the souls of the dead come to trouble the living,
and in order to prevent them from doing so, they pierce the soles of
the feet, and also the heart of the deceased, thinking that, being
then nailed into their tomb, the dead could not possibly leave it....
The Kirghis tribes apply to their sorcerers, or _Baksy_, to chase away
demons, and then to cure the diseases they are supposed to produce. To
this end they whip the invalid until the blood comes, and then spit
in his face. In their eyes every disease is a personal being. This
idea is so generally received amongst the Tchuvaches also, that they
firmly believe the least omission of duty is punished by some disease
sent to them by Tchemen, a demon whose name is only an altered form of
Shaitan. An opinion strongly resembling this is found again amongst the
Tchuktchis; these savages have recourse to the strangest conjurations
to free from disease; their Shamans are also subject to nervous states,
which they bring on by an artificial excitement.”[318]


JAPANESE MEDICINE.

The Chinese, as early as 218 B.C., found their way amongst the Japanese
doctors with medical books, dating back, it is alleged, to 2737 B.C.,
and the influence of Chinese medicine upon Japanese medicine has
continued to be a controlling one up to the recent introduction of
European medicines now in vogue. The old style of things is, according
to Dr. Benjamin Howard, still followed by 30,000 out of the 41,000
physicians now practising throughout the Empire. Of the 30,000 of the
old vernacular school, one of them is still on the list of the Court
physicians, and maintains a high reputation. The impression throughout
Europe that coloured papers, exorcisms, etc., are the basis of Chinese
and Japanese medicine is erroneous. Dr. Howard has seen nearly 2,000
books by these people, covering most of the departments of medicine,
but amongst which materia medica occupies the leading place. In these
books are the doctrines of the successive schools, strikingly like some
of those which in past centuries existed amongst our own ancestors. The
successive medical colleges have always had a professor of astrology,
but the solid fact remains that the materia medica has included
amongst its several hundred remedies a large number of those used by
ourselves, and these are not only vegetable, but animal and mineral,
in the latter class mercury being prominent. Surgery became a separate
branch as long since as the seventh or eighth century.[319]




CHAPTER VI.

THE MEDICINE OF THE PARSEES.

 Zoroaster and the _Zend-Avesta_.—The Heavenly Gift of the Healing
 Plants.—Ormuzd and Ahriman.—Practice of the Healing Art and its Fees.


Zoroaster, or more correctly Zarathustra, was the founder, or at least
the reformer of the Magian religion, and one of the greatest teachers
of the East. The date of Zoroaster is involved in obscurity, but all
classical antiquity agrees that he was an historical person. Neither
do we know his birthplace. Duncker gives 1000 B.C. as his period;
others consider that he was possibly a contemporary of Moses. In
the _Zend-Avesta_ and the records of the Parsees he is said to have
lived in the reign of Vitaçpa or Gushtap, whom most writers recognise
as Darius Hystaspis. Pliny notices works of Zoroaster treating of
Nature and of precious stones. He is credited with the invention of
magic; and as ancient medicine was closely connected with magic,
we may, in this sense, consider him as a physician. Aristotle and
Eudoxus stated that he lived six thousand years before Plato. It is
hopeless, however, to attempt to settle a question so involved in
obscurity. The most characteristic feature of Zoroaster’s teaching is
the dualistic conception of the scheme of the universe, according to
which two powers—a good and an evil—are for ever contending for the
mastery—Ormuzd against Ahriman. Ormuzd is of the light, and from this
emanate the good spirits whose laws are executed by Izeds, who are
angels and archangels.

Ahriman is of the darkness, and from this emanate Daêvas, powers by
whom mankind are led to their destruction—evil powers, false gods,
devils. From these Daêvas proceed all the evil which is in the world;
they are agents of that higher evil principle Druj, or falsehood and
deception, which is called Ahriman, the spirit enemy. These Daêvas send
to men, and are the causes of all diseases, which can only be cured by
the good spirits. Man belongs either to Ormuzd or to Ahriman according
to his deeds. If he offers sacrifice to Ormuzd and the gods, and helps
them by good thoughts, good deeds, and spreads life over the world and
opposes Ahriman by destroying evil, then he is a man of Asha, who
drives away fiends and diseases by spells. He who does the contrary to
this is a Dravant,—“demon,” a foe of Asha. The man of Ormuzd will have
a seat near him in heaven.[320]

According to the _Zend-Avesta_ Thrita was the first physician who drove
back death and disease. Ormuzd (Ahura Mazda) brought him down from
heaven ten thousand healing plants which had grown around the tree of
eternal life, which is the white Haoma (the Indian Soma), or Gaokerena,
which grows in the middle of the sea, Vouru-kasha. These are the
Haomas, says Darmesteter.[321]

One is the yellow, or earthly Haoma, and is the king of healing-plants;
the other, or white, is that which, on the day of resurrection, will
make men immortal. Thrita was one of the first priests of Haoma,
the life and health-giving plant, and thus he obtained his skill in
medicine. Darmesteter says that Thrita was originally the same as
Thraêtaona of the _Rig-Veda_.[322]

“We see that Thraêtaona fulfilled the same functions as Thrita.
According to Hamza he was the inventor of medicine. The Tavids
(formulas of exorcism) against sickness are inscribed with his name,
and we find in the Avesta itself the Fravashi of Thraêtaona invoked
‘against itch, hot fever, humours, cold fever, vâvareshi; against
the plagues created by the serpent.’ We learn from this passage that
disease was understood as coming from the serpent; in other words,
that it was considered a sort of poisoning, and this is the reason why
the killer of the serpent was invoked to act against it. Thus Thrita
Thraêtaona had a double right to the title of the first of the healers,
both as a priest of Haoma and as the conqueror of the serpent.”

Ormuzd (Ahura Mazda) said that Thrita “asked for a source of
remedies—he obtained it from Khshathia-Vaivya”—to withstand the
diseases and infection which Angra-Mainyu had created by his
witchcraft. As Ahriman had created ten thousand diseases, so Ormuzd
gave mankind the same number of healing plants. This idea is firmly
fixed in the minds of every one of us to this day: for every disease
there must of necessity somewhere be a remedy, and that usually with
the common people is supposed to be a plant. The Soma is the king
of the healing plants in India and that also came down from heaven.
“Whilst coming down from heaven the plants said, ‘He will never suffer
any wound the mortal whom we touch.’”[323]

Ormuzd, having given man the healing plants, said: “To thee, O
Sickness, I say, avaunt! To thee, O Death, I say, avaunt! To thee,
O Pain, I say, avaunt! To thee, O Fever, I say, avaunt! To thee, O
Disease, I say, avaunt!”[324]

In the Vendîdâd (Fargard vii. _a_)[325] it is demanded, “If a
worshipper of Mazda want to practise the art of healing, on whom shall
he first prove his skill? On worshippers of Mazda or on worshippers of
the Daêvas?”

Ahura Mazda answered: “On worshippers of the Daêvas shall he first
prove himself, rather than on worshippers of Mazda. If he treat with
the knife a worshipper of the Daêvas, and he die; if he treat with
the knife a second worshipper of the Daêvas, and he die; if he treat
with the knife for the third time a worshipper of the Daêvas, and he
die, he is unfit to practise the art of healing for ever and ever.
Let him therefore never attend any worshipper of Mazda; let him never
treat with the knife any worshipper of Mazda, nor wound him with the
knife. If he shall ever attend any worshipper of Mazda; if he shall
ever treat with the knife any worshipper of Mazda, and wound him with
the knife, he shall pay for it the same penalty as is paid for wilful
murder. If he treat with the knife a worshipper of the Daêvas, and
he recover; if he treat with the knife a second worshipper of the
Daêvas, and he recover; if for the third time he treat with the knife
a worshipper of the Daêvas, and he recover, then he is fit to practise
the art of healing for ever and ever. He may henceforth at his will
attend worshippers of Mazda; he may at his will treat with the knife
worshippers of Mazda, and heal them with the knife.”

Naturally, the rising surgeons would seek their clinical material
amongst the heretics.

We learn from the _Zend-Avesta_ that the doctrine of Zoroaster teaches
that not only real death makes one unclean, but partial death also.
The demon claims as his property everything which goes out of the body
of man, and that because it is dead. The breath which leaves the mouth
is unclean, so that fire, which is sacred, must not be blown with it.
Nail parings and cuttings of the hair are unclean, and unless protected
by spells are likely to become the weapons of the demons. Whatever
altered the body in its nature was demon’s work. On this principle the
menstruation of women causes their uncleanness. The menses are sent by
Ahriman; the woman is possessed by a demon while they last; she has to
be kept apart; she cannot even receive food from hand to hand; she may
not eat much lest she feed the demon. So utterly unclean is a woman who
has borne a dead child that she is not allowed to drink water unless
in danger of death. Logic compelled that a sick man should be treated
as one possessed. Sickness was sent by Ahriman, and is to be cured
by washings and spells. The most powerful therefore of all medical
treatment is magic. It was always more highly esteemed by the faithful
than treatment by drugs and the lancet.[326] Hair and nails, which
having been cut off have at once become the property of Ahriman, may be
withdrawn from his power by prayer, and by being deposited in the earth
in consecrated circles, which, being drawn round them, intrench them
against the fiend.[327]

In the _Zend-Avesta_ it is laid down that a woman who has been just
delivered of a child is unclean. When delivered of a dead child, she
must drink gômêz. Says Darmesteter:[328] “So utterly unclean is she,
that she is not even allowed to drink water, unless she is in danger of
death; and even then, as the sacred element has been defiled, she is
liable to the penalty of a Perhôtanu. It appears from modern customs
that the treatment is the same when the child is born alive; the reason
of which is that, in any case, during the first three days after
delivery she is in danger of death. A great fire is lighted to keep
away the fiends, who use then their utmost efforts to kill her and her
child. She is unclean only because the death-fiend is in her.”

The Saddar 16 says: “When there is a pregnant woman in a house, one
must take care that there be fire continually in it; when the child is
brought forth, one must burn a candle, or, better still, a fire, for
three days and three nights, to render the Dêvs and Drugs unable to
harm the child; for there is great danger during those three days and
nights after the birth of the child.”

A table of physician’s fees is given in the Vendîdâd. The healer is
to attend a priest and get him well for his blessing; the master of a
house is to pay the value of a cheap ox for the same service; but the
lord of a province is to pay the value of a chariot and four. The wife
of the master of a house pays the value of a she-ass for her healing,
but the wife of the lord of a province pays the value of a she-camel.

It declared that, “If several healers offered themselves together,
O Spitama Zarathustra! namely, one who heals with the knife, one who
heals with herbs, and one who heals with the holy word (_i.e._ by
spells), it is this one who will best drive away sickness from the
faithful.”




                               BOOK III.

                           _GREEK MEDICINE._




CHAPTER I.

THE MEDICINE OF THE GREEKS BEFORE THE TIME OF HIPPOCRATES.

 Apollo, the God of
 Medicine.—Cheiron.—Æsculapius.—Artemis.—Dionysus.—Ammon.—Hermes.
 —Prometheus.—Melampus.—Medicine  of Homer.—- Temples of
 Æsculapius.—The Early Ionic Philosophers.—Empedocles.—School of
 Crotona.—The Pythagoreans.—Grecian Theory of Diseases.—School
 of Cos.—The Asclepiads.—The Aliptæ.


GODS OF MEDICINE.

The origin of Greek medicine is intermixed with the Hellenic mythology.
We must begin, not with ÆSCULAPIUS (ASCLEPIOS), but with the sun
itself. APOLLO (PÆAN), as the god who visits men with plagues and
epidemics, was also the god who wards off evil and affords help to men.
He was constantly referred to as “the Healer,” as _Alexicacus_, the
averter of ills. He is the saviour from epidemics, and the _pæan_ was
sung in his honour (_Iliad_, I. 473, XXII. 391).

APOLLO promoted the health and well-being of man, and was the god of
prolific power, the trainer of youth, and thus he was the chief deity
of healing. As the god of light and purity he was truly the health-god;
and as light penetrates the darkness, he was the god of divination and
the patron of prophecy, acting chiefly through women when in a state of
ecstasy. Homer says that Pæan[329] was the physician of the Olympian
gods (_Iliad_, V. 401, 899).

Next we find Cheiron, the wise and just centaur (_Iliad_, XI. 831),
who had been instructed by Apollo and Artemis, and was famous for
his skill in medicine. He was the master and instructor of the most
celebrated heroes of Greek story, and he taught the art of healing to
ÆSCULAPIUS (B.C. 1250). This god of medicine was said to be the son of
Apollo. Pausanius[330] explains the allegory thus: “If Asclepius is the
air—indispensable to the health of man and beast, yet Apollo is the
sun, and rightly is he called the father of Asclepius, for the sun, by
his yearly course, makes the air wholesome.”

In the Homeric poems Æsculapius is not a divinity, but merely a human
being. Homer, however, calls all those who practise the art of healing
descendants of Pæan; his healing god is Apollo, and never Æsculapius.

Legend tells that Æsculapius was the son of Apollo by Coronis, who
was killed by Artemis for unfaithfulness, and her body was about to
be burnt on the pyre, when Apollo snatched the boy out of the flames
and handed him over to the centaur Cheiron, who taught him how to cure
all diseases. Pindar tells the story of his instruction in the art of
medicine:—

        “The rescued child he gave to share
        Magnesian Centaur’s fostering care;
        And learn of him the soothing art
        That wards from man diseases’ dart.
          Of those whom nature made to feel
        Corroding ulcers gnaw their frame;
          Or stones far hurled, or glittering steel,
        All to the great physician came.
        By summer’s heat or winter’s cold
          Oppressed, of him they sought relief.
        Each deadly pang his skill controlled,
        And found a balm for every grief.
    On some the force of charmed strains he tried,
    To some the medicated draught applied;
    Some limbs he placed the amulets around,
    Some from the trunk he cut, and made the patient sound.”[331]

It was believed that he was even able to restore the dead to life.
According to one tradition, Æsculapius was once shut up in the house
of Glaucus, whom he was to cure, and while he was absorbed in thought
there came a serpent, which twined round his staff, and which he
killed. Then he saw another serpent, which came carrying in its mouth
a herb, with which it recalled to life the one that had been killed;
and the physician henceforth made use of the same herb to restore dead
men to life, the popular belief, even in these early times, evidently
being that what would cure serpents would be equally efficacious for
men. We may therefore consider the snake-entwined staff of the healing
god as the symbol of the early faith in the efficacy of experiments on
animals, though in this instance the experiment was on a dead one.

Æsculapius was only too successful a practitioner; for when he was
exercising his art upon Glaucus, Zeus killed the physician with a
flash of lightning, as he feared that men might gradually escape death
altogether. Others say the reason was that Pluto complained that by
such medical treatment the number of the dead was too much diminished.
On the request of Apollo, Zeus placed Æsculapius amongst the stars. His
wife was Epione (the soother). Homer mentions Podalirius and Machaon
as sons of Æsculapius, and the following are also said to have been
his sons and daughters—Janiscus, Alexenor, Aratus, Hygeia, Ægle, Iaso,
and Panaceia. Most of these, as Hygeia, the goddess of health, and
Panaceia, the all-healing, it will be seen, are merely personifications
of the powers ascribed to their father. There is no doubt that facts
are the basis of the Æsculapian story. The divinity was worshipped all
over Greece. His temples were for the most part built in mountainous
and healthy places, and as often as possible in the neighbourhood
of a medicinal spring; in a sense they became the prototypes of our
hospitals and medical schools. Multitudes of sick persons visited them,
and the priests found it to their interest to study diseases and their
remedies; for though faith and religious fervour may do much for the
sick, the art of the physician and the hand of the surgeon are adjuncts
by no means to be despised even in a temple clinic. The chief of the
Æsculapian temples was at Epidaurus; there no one was permitted to die
and no woman to give birth to a child. The connection of the serpent
with the divinity probably arose from the idea that serpents represent
prudence and renovation, and have the power of discovering the secret
virtues of healing plants.

The idea of the serpent twined round the rod of Æsculapius is that
“as sickness comes from him, from him too must or may come the
healing.”[332] The knots on the staff are supposed to symbolize the
many knotty points which arise in the practice of physic.

MINERVA was the patroness of all the arts and trades; at her festivals
she was invoked by all who desired to distinguish themselves in
medicine, as well as by the patients whom they failed to cure. As the
goddess of intelligence and inventiveness, she was the Greek patroness
of physicians, and was the same deity as Pallas Athene, who bestows
health and keeps off sickness.

ARTEMIS, or DIANA, as the Romans called the Greek goddess, was a deity
who, inviolate and vigorous herself, granted health and strength
to others. She was the sister of Apollo, and though a dispenser of
life could, like her brother, send death and disease amongst men and
animals. Sudden deaths, especially amongst women, were described as the
effect of her arrows. She was θεὰ σώτειρα, who assuaged the sufferings
of mortals. When Æneas was wounded, she healed him in the temple of
Apollo.[333] Yet Artemis ταυροπόλος produced madness in the minds of
men.[334]

She was the Cretan Diktynna, and that goddess wore a wreath of the
magic plant _diktamnon_ or _dictamnus_, called by us _dittany_
(_dictamnus ruber_, or _albus_); it grows in abundance on Mounts
_Dicté_ and Ida in Crete.

The Cretan goddess BRITOMARTIS was sometimes identified with Artemis.
She too was a goddess of health as also of birth, and was supposed to
dispense happiness to mortals.

BACCHUS, or, as he was called by the Greeks, DIONYSUS, as the god of
wine, and an inspired and an inspiring deity, who revealed the future
by oracles, cured diseases by discovering to sufferers in their dreams
their appropriate remedies. The prophet, the priest, and the physician
are so often blended in one in the early history of civilization, that
the same ideas naturally clustered round Bacchus as around Apollo,
and other great benefactors of mankind. The giver of vines and wine
was the dispenser of the animating, exalting, intoxicating powers of
nature. As wine restores the flagging energies of the body and mind,
and seems to have the power of calling back to life the departing
spirit, and inspiring the languishing vitality of man, Bacchus would
naturally enough be a god of medicine. The intoxicating properties of
wine would be connected with inspiration, and so Bacchus had a share in
the oracles of Delphi and Amphicleia. He was invoked as a θεὸς σωτήρ
against raging diseases.

AMMON was an Ethiopian divinity whose worship spread over Egypt,
and thence to Greece, and was described as the spirit pervading the
universe, and as the author of all life in nature.

HERMES TRISMEGISTUS of the Greeks was identified in the time of Plato
with Thoth, Thot, or Theut of the Egyptians.[335]

The Egyptian THOTH was considered the father of all knowledge, and
everything committed to writing was looked upon as his property; he
was therefore the embodied eek: λόγος, and so τρὶς μέγιστος, or the
superlatively greatest. He was identified by the Greeks more or less
completely with their own HERMES, or MERCURY as he was known to the
Romans; he was the messenger of the gods; as dreams are sent by Zeus,
it was his office to convey them to men, and he had power to grant
refreshing sleep or to deny the blessing. As the gods revealed the
remedies for sickness in dreams, Hermes became a god of medicine.

Thoth, the ibis-headed, was the Egyptian god of letters, the deity
of wisdom in general, who aided Horus in his conflict with Seth, and
recorded the judgments of the dead before Osiris. Hermes κριοφόρος,
the averter of diseases, was worshipped in Bœotia. Hermes, the Greek
deity, was king of the dead and the conductor of souls to their future
home. Probably, therefore, we may rightly look upon Thoth, Hermes, and
Hermes Trismegistus as the same person. By many Thoth is considered
to be the Egyptian Æsculapius, as he was the inventor of the healing
art; the Phœnician god Esmun, one of the ancient Cabiri, was invested
with similar attributes, and was worshipped at Carthage and Berytus.
The authorship of the oldest Egyptian works on medicine is ascribed to
Thoth. These were engraved on pillars of stone. The works of Thoth were
ultimately incorporated into the so-called “Hermetic Books.” Clement of
Alexandria, who is our only ancient authority on these Hermetic works,
says they were forty-two in number.

PROMETHEUS (the man of freethought) is considered by Æschylus as the
founder of human civilization.

Æschylus, in his _Prometheus Chained_, makes the god say how he had
taught each useful art to man. As regards medicine, he says:—

    “Hear my whole story; thou wilt wonder more
    What useful arts, what science I invented.
    This first and greatest; when the fell disease
    Preyed on the human frame, relief was none,
    Nor healing drug, nor cool, refreshing draught,
    Nor pain-assuaging unguent; but they pined
    Without redress, and wasted, till I taught them
    To mix the balmy medicine, of power
    To chase each pale disease, and soften pain.”[336]

MELAMPUS, who was famous for his prophetic powers, was believed by the
Greeks to have been the first mortal who practised the art of medicine,
and established the worship of Dionysus in Greece. As doctors are
frequently expected to exercise the art of prophecy in conjunction with
their profession, it is unfortunate that we have retrograded from the
Melampian type. The eminent physician who tells the over-inquisitive
friends of his patients that he is “a doctor and not a prophet,” might
be answered that originally the two functions were combined. Melampus
taught the Greeks to mix their wine with water. He is fabled to have
learned the language of the birds from some young serpents who had
been reared by him, and who licked his ears when he was asleep. When
he awoke he found that he understood what the birds said, and that he
could foretell the future.

Iphiclus had no children, and he asked Melampus to tell him how he
could become a father. He advised him to take the rust from a knife,
and drink it in water during ten days. The remedy was eminently
successful, and is the first instance in which a preparation of iron is
known to have been prescribed in medicine. He cured the daughters of
Prœtus by giving them hellebore (which has been called Melampodium by
botanists), and he received the eldest of the princesses in marriage.
He cured the women of Argos of a severe distemper which made them
insane, and the king showed his gratitude by giving him part of his
kingdom. He received divine honours after his death, and temples were
raised to him.


THE MEDICINE OF HOMER.

As Homer is supposed to have lived about 850 B.C., a study of such
references as are to be found in the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ which relate
to medicine and surgery will throw an important light on the state
of the healing art as it was practised at that early period of Greek
history.

There is little mention of disease in Homer. We read of sudden death,
pestilence, and the troubles of old age, but there is hardly any fixed
morbid condition noticed.

Although the poet exhibits considerable acquaintance with medical lore,
and the human body in health and disease, he could have had little or
no acquaintance with anatomy, because amongst Greeks, as amongst Jews,
it was considered a profanation to dissect or mutilate the human corpse.

It was not till the rise of the Alexandrian school in the golden age of
the Ptolemies that this sentiment was overcome. Still Homer must have
known that it was the custom of the Egyptians to embalm their dead,
as he refers to the process in the _Iliad_,[337] where Thetis poured
into the nostrils of the corpse red nectar and ambrosia to preserve
it from putrefaction. Ambrosia is referred to by Virgil as useful for
healing wounds, and nectar was supposed to preserve flesh from decay.
Homer’s heroes seem to have been singularly healthy folk; their only
demand for the services of the army surgeons arose from the accidents
of war. MACHAON distinguished himself in surgery, and PODALIRIUS is
reputed to have been the first phlebotomist. Their services would be
chiefly required for extracting arrow-heads and spear-heads, checking
hæmorrhage by compression and styptic applications, and laying soothing
ointments on wounded and bruised surfaces. Beyond these minor duties
of the army surgeon, we find little record of their work. Mention is
not made of amputations, of setting of fractures, or tying of arteries.
Wounds were probed by Machaon, surgeon to Menelaus (Book IV.).

Whatever may have been the surgical skill of Machaon, we have proof
that the art of dieting the wounded was not at all understood in the
Homeric days. The wine and cheese was not the kind of refreshment which
found favour in Plato’s time with the Greek physicians. Plato, in the
_Republic_ (Book III.), deals with the question at some length. He says
that the draught of Pramnian wine with barley meal and cheese was an
inflammatory mixture, and a strange potion for a man in the state of
Eurypylus.

But he excuses the sons of Asclepius for their treatment, explaining
that their method was not intended for coddling invalids, but for such
as had not time to be ill, and that the healing art was revealed for
the benefit of those whose constitutions were naturally sound, and that
doctors used to expel their disorders by drugs and the use of the knife
without interrupting their customary avocations, declining altogether
to assist chronic invalids to protract a miserable existence by a
studied regimen.

Le Clerc says[338] that Plato is wrong in this explanation of the
Homeric treatment, and that the true one is that in those days the
dietary of the sick was not understood. Modern medicine will decline to
accept either theory. The fact is, Homer’s physicians were right. Good
old wine was the best thing possible to restore a man fainting from
the loss of blood; as for the cheese it was grated fine, and therefore
was a peculiarly nutritious food in a fairly digestible condition. The
barley water at all times was at least irreproachable. Although there
is little evidence in the Homeric poems of any medical treatment which
passes the limits of surgery, this is by no means conclusive against
the possession of the higher art by Podalirius. In an epic poem, as Le
Clerc points out, the subject is altogether too exalted to admit of
medical discourses on the treatment of colic and diarrhœa.

Neither must we be surprised, that when the pestilence appeared in the
camp of Agamemnon, Podalirius and Machaon did nothing to avert it.
Such a disease was at that time considered beyond all human skill, and
as the direct visitation of the gods. Homer clearly explains that the
pestilence was due to their anger. Galen adduces evidence to prove that
Æsculapius did really practise medicine, by music and by gymnastics, or
exercises on foot and horseback.

As Le Clerc says,[339] this may have been patriotic exaggeration on the
part of Galen. To Podalirius is attributed the invention of the art
of bleeding. As he returned from the Trojan war, he was driven by a
tempest on the shores of Caria, where a shepherd, having learned that
he was a physician, took him to the king, whose daughter was sick.
He cured her by bleeding from both arms; the king gave her to him in
marriage, with a rich grant of land. This is the oldest example which
we have of bleeding.

Podalirius had a son Hippolochus, of whom the great Hippocrates was
a descendant. Le Clerc devotes a chapter of his _History of Medicine_
to reflections on the antiquity of the practice of venesection, and
speculates on the manner of its discovery. He says, the fact that Homer
is silent on the subject makes neither for nor against the theory that
it was known in his time; in such works as those of the poet he was
under no obligation to specify particularly the remedies employed by
the doctors. He speaks, for example, of soothing medicines and bitter
roots without further definition. It would be as reasonable to agree
that purgation was unknown from Homer’s silence on the matter.

Homer knew something of the parts of the body where wounds are most
fatal. He says (Book IV., l. 183), “The arrow fell in no such place as
death could enter at,” and (Book VIII., l. 326), where the arrow struck
the right shoulder ’twixt the neck and breast, “the wound was wondrous
full of death.”

He knew much of drugs and medicinal plants: φάρμακον (pharmakon) in
the _Iliad_ is a remedy, an unguent or application, and is mentioned
nine times; in the _Odyssey_ it is a drug or medicinal herb, and is
referred to twenty times. In Book XI., Eurypylus, when wounded, is
treated with the “wholesome onion,” a potion is confected with good old
wine of Pramnius, with scraped goat’s-milk cheese and fine flour mixed
with it. Later on in the same book, we read of the bruised, bitter,
pain-assuaging root being applied to a wound; it was some strong
astringent bitter plant, probably a species of geranium.

Then in the _Odyssey_ (Book IV. 200) occurs the reference to nepenthe,
a drug which has puzzled commentators exceedingly; some say it was
poppy juice, others hashish; we have also the magic moly, which Mercury
gave to Ulysses against the charms of Circe. By some this is thought
to have been the unpoetical garlic, by others to be wild rue, such as
Josephus refers to. It was more probably the mandrake.

There is a very curious and important reference to sulphur, as a
disinfectant fumigation in the _Odyssey_ (Book XXII. 481):—

    “Bring sulphur straight, and fire” (the monarch cries).
    “She hears, and at the word obedient flies,
    With fire and sulphur, cure of noxious fumes,
    He purged the walls and blood-polluted rooms.”

This is precisely what the sanitary authorities do with fever dens at
the present day.

Homer several times refers to Machaon:—

    “And great Machaon to the ships convey.
    A wise physician, skilled our wounds to heal,
    Is more than armies to the public weal.”
                                                    (_Iliad_, XI. 614.)

With Podalirius, his brother, also a “famed surgeon,” he went to Troy
with thirty ships. Homer calls them “divine professors of the healing
arts” (_Iliad_, II. 728), and to them was committed the care of the
medical work of the expedition.

When Menelaus had been wounded by the spear of Pandarus, Machaon, we
are told by Homer (_Iliad_, IV. 218)—

    “Sucked the blood, and sovereign balm infused,
    Which Cheiron gave, and Æsculapius used.”

Agamede is referred to by Homer (_Iliad_, XI. 739) as acquainted with
the healing properties of all the plants that grow on the earth. She
was a daughter of Augeias, and wife of Mulius. The poet refers to her
as—

    “She that all simples’ healing virtues knew,
    And every herb that drinks the morning dew.”[340]

HESIOD lived about the same time as Homer. He wrote the famous _Works
and Days_, a species of farmer’s calendar, and the _Theogony_.

On account of the knowledge he possessed of the properties of plants,
Theophrastus, Pliny, and others ranked him amongst the physicians.[341]

Both Podalirius and Machaon were held in great honour, not only as
combatants, but as medical advisers, and Homer’s account of them
exhibits the medical profession of his time as one that was very highly
esteemed. In the fragment of Arctinus which remains to us, we find thus
early the distinction made between the arts of medicine and surgery,
the two principal divisions of medical science: “Then Asclepius
bestowed the power of healing upon his two sons; nevertheless, he made
one of the two more celebrated than the other; on one did he bestow the
lighter hand, that he might draw missiles from the flesh, and sew up
and heal all wounds; but he other he endowed with great precision of
mind, so as to understand what cannot be seen, and to heal seemingly
incurable diseases.”[342]

This very interesting extract not only shows the early separation of
the arts of medicine and surgery, but it exhibits very clearly how
it arose that the former was always held to be the higher branch of
the medical profession. To sew up a laceration, or extract an arrow
or a thorn from the flesh, demanded only manual dexterity; but “to
understand that which cannot be seen,” and heal internal organs that
cannot even be touched, required a skill and a mental precision that
men even in those early times were able to appreciate as much the
higher of the two arts. There seems, however, some confusion of the
two branches in the lines:—

    “A wise physician, skilled our wounds to heal,
    Is more than armies to the public weal.”

If we suppose that the account of venesection which attributes its
discovery to Podalirius is fabulous, this would only serve to prove the
antiquity of the practice. Hippocrates is said to be the first medical
writer who has spoken of bleeding,[343] yet we must not suppose it
was unknown before his time. He advises blood-letting from the arm,
from the temporal vessels, from the leg, etc., in some cases even to
fainting. He is familiar with cupping and other methods of abstracting
blood; it is not probable, therefore, that the operation was a new one
in his day.

The discovery of the practice of purging as a remedy was attributed
to Melampus. But we know that the Egyptians made use of purgative and
emetic medicines. There were many purgatives in use in the time of
Hippocrates, as hellebore, elaterium, colocynth, and scammony. All
these medicines could not have been discovered at once, as Le Clerc
points out; mankind, therefore, must have gradually acquired their
use. When persons were overloaded in the stomach and constipated,
nothing was more natural than that they should seek relief by removing
the mechanical causes of their distress. Some one had taken some herb
which had caused him to vomit or to be purged, and had experienced the
benefit of the evacuation; he told his friends, and they perhaps had
been aided by similar means. Or again, some illness had been alleviated
by the supervention of diarrhœa, and art was called in to imitate
the beneficial effect of nature’s cure. In this way, says Le Clerc,
bleeding may reasonably have been discovered: a severe headache is
often relieved by bleeding from the nose, what more natural than that
the process of relief should be imitated by opening a vein?

Pliny, indeed, in his usual manner, introduces a fable to account for
the discovery of venesection. He says[344] that the hippopotamus having
become too fat and unwieldy through over-eating, bled himself with a
sharp-pointed reed, and when he had drawn sufficient blood, closed the
wound with clay. Men have imitated the operation, says Pliny. This is
matched by the story of the ibis with her long bill being the inventor
of the clyster. Most of the medical beast stories are probably on a
level with these.

_Hygeia_, the wife of _Æsculapius_, and her children, bore names which
show the same poetic fancy as that which constituted Apollo the author
of medicine. _Æsculapius_ is the air. _Hygeia_ is health; _Ægle_ is
brightness or splendour, because the air is illumined and purified by
the sun. _Iaso_ is recovery, _Panacea_ the universal medicine, _Roma_
is strength.

The ancients everywhere believed that the healing art was taught to
mankind by the gods. “The art of medicine,” says Cicero, “has been
consecrated by the invention of the immortal gods.”[345]

Hippocrates[346] attributed the art of medicine to the Supreme Being.
As the Greeks believed that the arts in general were invented by the
gods, it was a natural belief that the knowledge of medicine should
have been taught by the heavenly powers. The mysteries of life,
disease, and death were peculiarly the province of supernatural beings,
and man has ever attributed to such powers all those things which he
could not comprehend.


THE TEMPLES OF ÆSCULAPIUS.

The worship of Asclepius or Æsculapius is so closely associated with
the practice of Greek medicine that it is impossible to understand
the one without knowing something of the other. Sick persons made
pilgrimages to the temples of the god of healing, just as now they go
to Lourdes, St. Winifred’s Well, or other famous Christian shrines for
the recovery of their health. After prayers to the god, ablutions, and
sacrifices, the patient was put to sleep on the skin of the animal
offered at the altar, or at the foot of the statue of the divinity,
while the priests performed their sacred rites. In his sleep he would
have pointed out to him in a dream what he ought to do for the recovery
of his health. Sometimes the appropriate medicine would be suggested,
but more commonly rules of conduct and diet would suffice. When the
cure took place, which very frequently happened by suggestion as in
modern hypnotism, and by the stimulus to the nervous system consequent
upon the journey, and the hope excited in the patient, a record of the
case and the cure was carved on the temple walls. Thus were recorded
the first histories of cases, and their study afforded the most
valuable treatises on the healing art to the physicians who studied
them. The priests of Æsculapius were sometimes called Asclepiads, but
they did not themselves act as physicians, nor were they the actual
founders of Greek medicine. The true Asclepiads were healers and not
priests. Anathemata (ἀνάθεμα, anything offered up) were offerings of
models in gold, silver, etc., of diseased legs, feet, etc., or of
deformed limbs consecrated to the gods in the temples by the devotion
of the patients who had received benefit from the prayers to the
deities who were worshipped therein. The priests of the temples sold
these again and again to fresh patients.


THE EARLY IONIC PHILOSOPHERS.

The various schools of Greek philosophy were intimately associated
with the study of medicine. They endeavoured to fathom the mystery
of life, and the relationship of the visible order of things to the
unseen world. The philosophers were therefore not only physicists,
but metaphysicians, and the unhappy science of medicine, a homeless
wanderer, had to shelter herself now with the natural philosophers and
again with the metaphysicians. Probably the philosophers never really
practised physic, but merely speculated about it, as did Plato. A brief
notice of the various philosophers of the Ionic, Italian, Eleatic, and
Materialistic schools who were more or less associated with the study
of medicine must suffice as an introduction to Greek medicine proper,
which had its origin with Hippocrates.

THALES OF MILETUS (about 609 B.C.), the Ionian philosopher, introduced
Egyptian and Asiatic science into Greece. He had probably in his
travels in the land of the Pharaohs devoted himself to mathematical
pursuits, and if not a scientific inquirer was a deep speculator on
the origin of things. He held that everything arises from water, and
everything ultimately again resolves itself into water. Everything, he
said, is full of gods; the soul originates motion (the magnet has a
soul, according to him), and so the indwelling power or soul of water
produces the phenomena of the natural world. He must not, however,
be understood as teaching the doctrine of the Soul of the Universe,
or of a Creating Deity. Thales was the first writer on physics and
the founder of the philosophy of Greece. Le Clerc connects him with
medicine by his converse with the priest-physicians of Egypt, and that
he had performed certain expiatory or purifying ceremonies for the
Lacedæmonians which could only be done by such as were divines and
physicians.[347]

PHERECYDES, the Syrian, a philosopher who lived about the same time as
Thales, is said by Galen to have written upon diet.

EPIMENEDES was a sort of Greek Rip Van Winkle, who purified Athens in
the time of a plague by means of mysterious rites and sacrifices. He
excelled as a fasting man, so that he was said to have been exempt
from the ordinary necessities of nature, and could send out his soul
from his body and recall it like the Mahatmas. He was of the class of
priestly bards, a seer and prophet who was well acquainted with the
virtues of plants for medicinal purposes, and as he was believed to
have gone to sleep in a cave for fifty-seven years, he was credited
with the possession of supernatural medicinal powers.[348]

ANAXIMANDER, born B.C. 610, is said to have been a pupil of Thales.
He taught that a single determinate substance having a middle nature
between water and air was the infinite, everlasting, and divine, though
not intelligent material from which all things had their origin. This
he called the ἄπειρον, the chaos. All substances were derived thence
by the conflict of heat and cold and the electric affinities of the
particles. The atomic theory is foreshadowed here.

ANAXIMENES was the friend of Thales and Anaximander, and all three were
born at Miletus. He considered that air was the first cause of all
things, or primary condition of matter; all finite things were formed
from the infinite air by compression or rarefaction produced by eternal
motion. Heat and cold are produced by the varying density of the primal
element. He held the eternity of matter like his brother philosophers,
and believed that the soul itself is merely a form of air. He held no
Divine Author of the Universe, motion being a necessary law of the
universe, and with motion and air he required nothing else for the
constitution of all things.

HERACLEITUS of Ephesus, born about 556 B.C., embodied his system
of philosophy in his work _On Nature_. He held that the ground of
all phenomena is a physical principle, a living unity, pervading
everything, inherent in all things—fire, that is, as he explains, a
clear light fluid “self-kindled and self-extinguished.” The world was
not created by God, but evolved from the rational intelligence which
guides the universe—fire. Fire longs to manifest itself in various
forms; from its pure state in heaven it descends, assumes the form of
earth, passing in its progress through that of water. Man’s soul is a
spark of the divine fire.

ANAXAGORAS, born about 499 B.C., was the friend of Pericles and
Euripides at Athens. Seeking to explain the world and man by a higher
cause than the physical ones of his predecessors, he postulated
_nous_—that is, mind, thought, or intelligence. As nothing can come
out of nothing, he did not attribute to this _nous_ the creation of
the world, but only its order and arrangement. Matter is eternal,
but existed as chaos till _nous_ evolved order from the confusion.
Baas[349] says his physiological and pathological views may be
thus described: “The animal body, by means of a kind of affinity,
appropriates to itself from the nutritive supply the portions similar
to itself. Males originate in the right, females in the left side
of the uterus. Diseases are occasioned by the bile which penetrates
into the blood-vessels, the lungs, and the pleura.” He undertook the
dissection of animals, remarked the existence in the brain of the
lateral ventricles, and was the first to declare that the bile is the
cause of acute sickness.[350]

DIOGENES OF APOLLONIA, the eminent natural philosopher, lived at Athens
about 460 B.C. He was a pupil of Anaximenes, and wrote a work entitled
_On Nature_, in which he treated of physical science generally.
Aristotle has preserved for us some of the few fragments which remain.
The most important is the description of the origin and distribution of
the veins, and is inserted in the third book of Aristotle’s _History
of Animals_. Diogenes Laertius gives an account of the philosophical
teaching of the philosopher: “He maintained that air was the primal
element of all things; that there was an infinite number of worlds,
and an infinite void; that air, densified and rarefied, produced the
different members of the universe; that nothing was produced from
nothing, or was reduced to nothing; that the earth was round, supported
in the middle, and had received its shape from the whirling round of
the warm vapours, and its concretion and hardening from cold.”[351]

Diogenes recognised no distinction between mind and matter, yet he
considered air possessed intellectual energy.

We find in this philosopher many indications that the vascular system
was in some degree beginning to be understood.[352] Mr. Lewes and Mr.
Grote agree that Diogenes deserves a higher place in the evolution of
philosophy than either Hegel or Schwegler.

EMPEDOCLES of Agrigentum, born about 490 B.C., now bears forward the
flaming torch of medical science, and in his hands it burns more
brightly still. Aristotle mentions him among the Ionian physiologists,
and ranks him with the atomistic philosophers and Anaxagoras. These
all sought to discover the basis of all changes and to explain them.
According to Empedocles: “There are four ultimate kinds of things, four
primal divinities, of which are made all structures in the world—fire,
air, water, and earth. These four elements are eternally brought into
union, and eternally parted from each other, by two divine beings or
powers, love and hatred—an attractive and a repulsive force which the
ordinary eye can see working amongst men, but which really pervade the
whole world. According to the different proportions in which these four
indestructible and unchangeable matters are combined with each other
is the difference of the organic structure produced; _e.g._, flesh and
blood are made of equal parts of all four elements, whereas bones are
one-half fire, one-fourth earth, and one-fourth water. It is in the
aggregation and segregation of elements thus arising that Empedocles,
like the atomists, finds the real process which corresponds to what is
popularly termed growth, increase, or decrease. Nothing new comes or
can come into being; the only change that can occur is a change in the
juxtaposition of element with element.”[353]

He considered that men, animals, and plants are demons punished by
banishment, but who, becoming purified, may regain the home of the
gods. It is hardly necessary to say that he held the demoniacal
possession theory of disease, and treated all complaints by means
appropriate to the theory. Anticipating the modern opinions of the
bacteriologists, he banished epidemics by building great fires and
draining the water from marshy lands. He understood something of the
causes of infectious diseases, and in their treatment usurped the
province of the gods who had sent them.[354] He believed the embryo
was nourished through the navel. We owe to him the terms _amnion_ and
_chorion_ (_i.e._, the innermost and outer membranes with which the
fœtus is surrounded in the womb). He believed that death was caused by
extinction of heat, that expiration arose from the upward motion of the
blood, and inspiration from the reverse. He is said to have raised a
dead woman to life.[355]

Empedocles believed in the doctrine of re-incarnation. “I well
remember,” he says, “the time before I was Empedocles, that I once
was a boy, then a girl, a plant, a glittering fish, a bird that cut
the air.” To his disciples he said: “By my instructions you shall
learn medicines that are powerful to cure disease, and re-animate
old age—you shall recall the strength of the dead man, when he has
already become the victim of Pluto.”[356] Further speaking of himself,
he says: “I am revered by both men and women, who follow me by ten
thousands, inquiring the road to boundless wealth, seeking the gift of
prophecy, and who would learn the marvellous skill to cure all kinds of
diseases.”[357]


THE SCHOOL OF THE PYTHAGOREANS AT CROTONA.

Although in ancient Greece the art of medicine, as we have already
shown, was closely connected with the temples, if not actually with
religion, its entanglement with philosophy was a scarcely less
unfortunate connection, and it was not able to make any real progress
till HIPPOCRATES liberated it from both priests and philosophers.
582 years before Christ PYTHAGORAS was born, the ideal hero or saint
whom we faintly discern through the mythical haze which has always
enveloped him. Philosopher, prophet, wonder-worker, and physician, he
gathered into his mind as into a focus the wisdom of the Brahmans,
the Persian Magi, the Egyptians, the Phœnicians, the Chaldæans, the
Jews, the Arabians, and the Druids of Gaul, amongst whom he had
travelled, if we may believe what is reported of him. He may have
visited Egypt,[358] at any rate, besides acquainting himself with the
countries of the Mediterranean. His authentic history begins with his
emigration to Crotona, in South Italy, about the year 529. There he
founded a kind of religious brotherhood or ethical-reform society, and
“appeared as the revealer of a mode of life calculated to raise his
disciples above the level of mankind, and to recommend them to the
favour of the gods.”[359] Grote believes that the removal to Crotona
was prompted by the desire to study medicine in its famous school,
probably combined with the notion of instructing the pupils in his
philosophy. He rendered great services to the healing art by insisting
on the necessity of a thorough comprehension of the organs, structure,
and functions of the body in their normal, healthy condition; this must
be conceded, though his visionary philosophy did much to destroy the
scientific value of his medical teaching.

The founder of the healing art amongst the Greeks and Hellenic peoples
generally was Pythagoras. He was imbued with Eastern mysticism,
teaching that the air is full of spiritual beings, who send dreams to
men and cause to men and cattle disease and health. He taught that
these spirits must be conciliated by lustrations and invocations. Pliny
says[360] that he taught that holding dill (_anethum_) in the hand
is good against epilepsy. The health of the body is to be maintained
by diet and gymnastics. It is interesting to find that this great
philosopher recommended music to restore the harmony of the spirits.
Besides the magic virtues of the dill, he held that many other plants
possessed them, such as the cabbage (a food in great favour with the
Pythagoreans), the squill, and anise. He held that surgery was not to
be practised, as it is unlawful, but salves and poultices were to be
permitted. His disciples attributed the union between medicine and
philosophy to him.

The Pythagorean philosophy turns upon the idea of numbers and the
mathematical relations of things. “All things are number;” “number is
the essence of everything.” The world subsists by the principle of
ordered numbers. The spheres revolve harmoniously; the seven planets
are the seven golden chords of the heavenly heptachord. As a corollary
to this notion we have the theory of opposites. We have the odd and
even, and their combinations. The even is the unlimited, the odd the
limited; so all things are derived from the combination of the limited
and the unlimited. Then we get the limited and the unlimited, the odd
and the even, the one and many, right and left, masculine and feminine,
rest and motion, straight and crooked, light and darkness, good and
evil, square and oblong. When opposites unite, there is harmony. The
number ten comprehends all other numbers in itself; four was held in
great respect, because it is the first square number and the potential
decade (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10). Pythagoras was the discoverer of the
holy τετρακτύς, “the fountain and root of ever-living nature.” Five
signifies marriage, one is reason because unchangeable, two is opinion,
seven is called παρθένος and Ἀθήνη, because within the decade it has
neither factors nor product.[361]

The doctrine of transmigration of souls, metempsychosis, is
Pythagoras’s. He probably borrowed it from the Orphic mysteries;
originally no doubt it came from Asia. Asceticism, mysticism, and
Neoplatonism sprang from this noble and lofty philosophy. Closely
connected with his theory of numbers he held that from these points
are produced, from these lines, from lines figures, and from figures
solid bodies. The elements fire, water, earth, and air, account in his
conception for the formation of the world. He understood the structure
of the body, its procreation and development. He believed that the
animal soul is an emanation from the world-soul; the universal soul
is God, author of himself. Demons are an order of beings between the
highest and the lowest. Striving for the good brings moral health.
Bodily health means harmony, disease means discord. Diseases are caused
by demons, and are to be dispelled by prayers, offerings, and music. He
first among the Greeks taught the immortality of the soul; he held a
doctrine of rewards and punishments, and taught that of metempsychosis.
For many succeeding ages the Pythagorean doctrine had the greatest
influence on the art of medicine.[362]

Le Clerc says that Pythagoras obtained his ideas of the climacteric
years from the Chaldæans. The term is applied to the seventh year of
the life of man, and it was anciently believed that at each change we
incur some risk to life or health, on account of the bodily changes
undergone at that time.[363] Celsus says that the medical sentiment
with respect to the septenary number in diseases, and that of the odd
and even days, is of Pythagorean origin.[364] The Pythagoreans had a
great respect for the number four. The quaternary number was sacred to
the Egyptians; they burned in the temples of Isis a kind of resinous
gum, myrrh, and other drugs, in the preparation of which they had
regard to the number four. The Israelites imitated them in this respect
(Exod. xxx. 2).[365]

The sacred bean of Pythagoras was the object of religious veneration in
Egypt; the priests were commanded not to look upon it. It is thought to
have been the East Indian _Nelumbium_.[366]

ZAMOLXIS, who was a god to the Getans, is supposed by some to have
been a slave and disciple of Pythagoras; by others he is considered an
altogether mythical personage. He is credited by those who believe him
to have been a physician with having said that “A man could not cure
the eyes without curing the head, nor the head without all the rest
of the body, nor the body without the soul.” Plato said much the same
thing when he remarked, “To cure a headache you must treat the whole
man.” Zamolxis cured the soul, not by the enchantments of magic, but by
wise discourse and reasonable conversation. “These discourses,” said
Plato, “produce wisdom in the soul, which having once been acquired it
is easy after that to procure health both for the head and all the rest
of the body.”

DEMOCEDES was a celebrated physician of Crotona, in Magna Grecia, who
lived in the sixth century B.C. He went to practise at Ægina, where
he received from the public treasury a sum equal to about £344 a year
for his services. The next year he went to Athens at a salary equal to
£406, and the following year he went to the island of Samos. The tyrant
Polycrates gave him the salary of two talents. He was carried prisoner
to Susa to the court of Darius, where he acquired a great reputation
and much wealth by curing the king’s foot and the breast of the queen.
It is recorded that Darius ordered the surgeons who had failed to cure
him to be put to death, but Democedes interceded for and saved them. He
ultimately escaped to Crotona, where he settled, the Persians having in
vain demanded his return.[367] He wrote a work on medicine.

DEMOCRITUS, of Abdera, was a contemporary of Socrates; he was born
between 494 and 460 B.C., and was one of the founders of the Atomic
philosophy. He was profoundly versed in all the knowledge of his
time. So ardent a student was he, that he once said that he preferred
the discovery of a true cause to the possession of the kingdom of
Persia. The highest object of scientific investigation he held to be
the _discovery of causes_. He wrote on medicine, and devoted himself
zealously to the study of anatomy and physiology. Pliny says that he
composed a special treatise on the structure of the chameleon.[368] He
wrote on canine rabies, and on the influence of music in the treatment
of disease. He is, however, best known to science on account of his
cosmical theory. All that exists is vacuum and atoms. The atoms are
the ultimate material of all things, even of spirit. They are uncaused
and eternal, invisible, yet extended, heavy and impenetrable. They
are in constant motion, and have been so from all eternity. By their
motion the world and all it contains was produced. Soul and fire are of
the same nature, of small, smooth, round atoms, and it is by inhaling
and exhaling these that life is maintained. The soul perishes with
the body. He rejected all theology and popular mythology. Reason had
nothing to do with the creation of the world, and he said, “There is
nothing true; and if there is, we do not know it.” “We know nothing,
not even if there is anything to know.” He died in great honour,
yet in poverty, at an advanced age (some writers say at 109 years).
His knowledge of nature, and especially of medicine, caused him to
be considered a sorcerer and a magician. There was a tradition that
he deprived himself of his sight in order to be undisturbed in his
intellectual speculations. He probably became blind by too close
attention to study. Another story was that he was considered to be
insane, and Hippocrates was sent for to cure him.

The great philosophers of ancient Greece believed that all the elements
are modifications of one common substance, called the primary matter,
which they demonstrated to be devoid of all quality and form, but
susceptible of all qualities and forms. It is everything in capacity,
but nothing in actuality. Matter is eternal; the elements are the first
matter arranged into certain distinguishing forms. Some of the early
philosophers held that all the materials which compose the universe
existed in a fluid form; they understood by fire, matter in a highly
refined state, and that it is the element most intimately connected
with life, some even considering it the very essence of the soul. “Our
souls are fire,” says Phornutus. “What we call heat is immortal,” says
one of the Hippocratic writers, “and understands, sees, and hears all
things that are or will be.”[369]

Bacon explains the ancient fable of Proteus as signifying matter, a
something which, being below all forms and supporting them, is yet
different from them all.

Sir Isaac Newton is not widely different from Strabo when he says that
all bodies may be convertible into one another.

Commenting upon these opinions of the Greek philosophers, Dr. Adams
says, in his introduction to the works of Hippocrates:[370] “If every
step which we advance in the knowledge of the intimate structure of
things leads us to contract the number of substances formerly held to
be simple, I would not wonder if it should yet turn out that oxygen,
carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen are—like what the ancients held the
elements to be—all nothing else but different modifications of one
ever-changing matter.”

The theories of the Greek philosophers on the elements are poetically
summed up in Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_:—

    “Nor those which elements we call abide,
    Nor to this figure nor to that are ty’d:
    For this eternal world is said of old
    But four prolific principles to hold,
    Four different bodies; two to heaven ascend,
    And other two down to the centre tend.
    Fire first, with wings expanded, mounts on high,
    Pure, void of weight, and dwells in upper sky;
    Then air, because unclogged, in empty space
    Flies after fire, and claims the second place;
    But weighty water, as her nature guides,
    Lies on the lap of earth; and mother Earth subsides.
    All things are mixed of these, which all contain,
    And into these are all resolved again;
    Earth rarifies to dew; expanding more,
    The subtle dew in air begins to soar;
    Spreads as she flies, and, weary of the name,
    Extenuates still, and changes into flame.
    Thus having by degrees perfection won,
    Restless, they soon untwist the web they spun,
    And fire begins to lose her radiant hue,
    Mixed with gross air, and air descends in dew!
    And dew condensing, does her form forego,
    And sinks, a heavy lump of earth, below.
    Thus are their figures never at a stand,
    But changed by Nature’s innovating hand.”[371]


GREEK THEORIES OF DISEASE.

As the Greeks believed that all diseases were the consequences of
the anger of the gods, it was in their temples that cures were most
likely to take place. Faith was the _sine quâ non_ in the patient,
and everything about the temple and its ceremonies was calculated to
excite religious awe and to stimulate faith. Preliminary purifications,
fasting, massage, and fomentations with herbs, were necessary parts
of the initiatory ceremonies, and the imagination was excited by
everything that the sufferer saw around him. He heard the stories of
the marvellous cures which had taken place at the sacred fane. Tablets
round the walls, placed there by grateful worshippers who had been
cured in the past,[372] served to fill the mind with hope, when, as
was the practice, the patient lay down in the holy place by the image
of the healing god, that in the incubatory sleep the remedies which
were to cure him might be revealed. Sometimes no such revelation was
vouchsafed, then sacrifices and prayers were offered; if these failed,
the priests themselves would appear in the mask and the dress of the
healing god, and in the darkness and mystery of the night reveal the
necessary prescriptions. To interpret the dreams was the task of the
priests at all times, just as it was in the temples of ancient Egypt.
Divination, magic, and astrology largely assisted in the work of
discovering the requisite remedies. If all failed, it was due not to
any defect on the part of the divinity or his servants, but simply
to the want of faith on the part of the patient. The festivals of
Æsculapius were called Asclepia, and the presiding priests of the
healing god were named Asclepiades. The schools of the Asclepiades
were a sort of medical guild, and their doctrines were divided into
exoteric and esoteric. They naturally became possessed of a great body
of medical teaching, which was preserved as a precious secret and
handed down from generation to generation. The Asclepiadæ thus became
the hereditary physicians of Greece. Medicine at this period was not
a science to be taught to all comers, but was a mystery to be orally
transmitted. These men pretended to be descendants of Æsculapius, just
as now the imitators of medicines, perfumes, etc., which have become
celebrated, give out that they belong to the family of the inventor,
and thus know the secrets of the preparation.[373]

This professional class was quite distinct from the priests of the
Æsculapian temples, though many writers have confused them. Probably
the truth is this:—Certain students from reading the votive tablets
in the temples, and examining the persons who came to be cured, gave
their attention to the art of medicine, and established themselves
as physicians in the neighbourhood of the temples; for it does not
appear that the priests themselves pretended to medical skill. They
were the instruments of the divine revelation, the mediums of the
healing power of the god; they suggested remedies, but did not attempt
their application or the treatment of cases. In process of time the
pilgrims to the temples would require human aid to supplement the
often disappointing divine assistance, and this the Asclepiadæ were
appointed to supply. Hypnotism was probably practised; music, and such
drugs as hemlock were also employed which soothe the nervous system and
relieve pain. The Asclepiadæ took careful notes of the symptoms and
progress of each case, and were particular to observe the effect of the
treatment prescribed; they became, in consequence, exceedingly skilful
in prognosis. Galen says that little attention was paid to dietetics by
the Asclepiads; but Strabo speaks of the knowledge which Hippocrates
derived from the documents in the Asclepion of Cos.[374] Exercise,
especially on horseback, was one of the measures used by the Asclepiads
for restoring the health.[375]


SCHOOLS OF THE ASCLEPIADES.

The three most famous schools of the Asclepiades were those of Rhodes,
Cos, and Cnidos. There were also that of Crotona, in Lower Italy,
established by Pythagoras, and the school of Cyrene, in the North of
Africa. Famous temples of Æsculapius existed at Titanæ, Epidaurus,
Orope, Cyllene, Tithorea, Tricca, Megalopolis, Pergamus, Corinth,
Smyrna, and at many other places.[376]

A spirit of healthy emulation existed in these different schools, which
was most advantageous for the progress of medical science. The tone
existing at this early period amongst the different medical societies
at these institutions is shown in the famous oath which the pupils of
the Asclepiadæ were compelled to subscribe on completing their course
of instruction in medicine. It is the oldest written monument of the
Greek art of healing.[377]


THE OATH.

“I swear by Apollo, the physician, and Æsculapius, and Health, and
Panacea,[378] and all the gods and goddesses, that, according to my
ability and judgment, I will keep this oath and this stipulation—to
reckon him who taught me this art equally dear to me as my parents, to
share my substance with him, and relieve his necessities if required;
to look upon his offspring in the same footing as my own brothers, and
to teach them this art, if they shall wish to learn it, without fee
or stipulation; and that by precept, lecture, and every other mode of
instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the art to my own sons, and
those of my teachers, and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath
according to the law of medicine, but to none others. I will follow
that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment,
I consider for the benefit of my patient, and abstain from whatever
is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any
one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will
not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion. With purity and
with holiness I will pass my life and practise my art. I will not cut
persons labouring under the stone, but will leave this to be done by
men who are practitioners of this work.[379]

“Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit
of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief
and corruption; and, further, from the seduction of females or males,
of freemen or slaves. Whatever, in connection with my professional
practice, or not in connection with it, I see or hear, in the life of
men, which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as
reckoning that all such should be kept secret. While I continue to keep
this oath unviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the
practice of the art, respected by all men, in all times! But should I
trespass and violate this oath, may the reverse be my lot!”

Ancient authorities differ as to the respective order in which the
schools of the Asclepiads should be esteemed. Rhodes, Cos, and Cnidos
continually disputed for the pre-eminence, Cos and Cnidos acquiring
great fame by their conflicting opinions. According to Galen, the
first place must be conceded to Cos, as having produced the greatest
number of excellent disciples, amongst whom was Hippocrates; he ranks
Cnidos next. Cos (B.C. 600) was the objective school, and devoted its
studies chiefly to symptomatology. It asked, what can we see of the
patient’s disorder? of what does he complain? what, in fact, are his
symptoms? This is practical medicine, though not so much in accordance
with modern scientific medicine as the method of Cnidos, the subjective
school. There the aim was to make a correct diagnosis; to find out what
was behind the symptoms, what caused the morbid appearances; what it
was that the sensations of the patient indicated; and its aim was not
to treat symptoms so much as to treat vigorously the disorder which
caused them. Auscultation, or the art of scientifically listening
to the sounds of the chest, those of the lungs in breathing, and of
the heart in beating, was to some extent understood and practised at
Cnidos. The medical school of Crotona was in the highest repute 500
B.C., probably on account of its connection with the Pythagoreans. The
school of Rhodes does not seem to have had a long life.

That of Cyrene was famous on account not only of its medical
teaching, but from the fact that mathematics and philosophy were
industriously pursued there. The teaching in all these schools must
have been of a very high order; for, though unfortunately little of
it has descended directly to us, we have sufficient evidence of its
importance in such fragments as are to be found incorporated with the
works of Hippocrates, such as the _Coan Prognostics_ and the _Cnidian
Sentences_; the former, a miscellaneous collection of the observations
made by the physician of Cos, and the latter, a work attributed to
Euryphon, a celebrated physician of Cnidos (about the former half of
the fifth century B.C.).

Experiment and observation were insisted upon in the study of anatomy
and physiology. Galen tells us in his second book, _On Anatomical
Manipulations_: “I do not blame the ancients, who did not write books
on anatomical manipulations; though I praise Marinus, who did. For
it was superfluous for them to compose such records for themselves
or others, while they were, from their childhood, exercised by their
parents in dissecting, just as familiarly as in writing and reading;
so that there was no more fear of their forgetting their anatomy than
of their forgetting their alphabet. But when grown men, as well as
children, were taught, this thorough discipline fell off; and, the art
being carried out of the family of the Asclepiads, and declining by
repeated transmission, books became necessary for the student.”

The method of the Asclepiadæ was one of true induction; much was
imperfect in their efforts to arrive at the beginning of medical
science. They had little light, and often stumbled; but they made the
best use of what they had, and with all their deviations they always
returned to the right path, and kept their faces towards the light.
Hippocrates was of them; and Bacon of Verulam, in the centuries to
come, followed and developed the same method. Dr. Adams remarks the
assiduous observation and abundant rational experience which led them
to enunciate such a law of nature as this: “Those things which bring
alleviation with bad signs, and do not remit with good, are troublesome
and difficult.”

       *       *       *       *       *

CTESIAS, of Cnidus, in Caria, was a physician at the court of King
Artaxerxes Mnemon. He may be called a contemporary of Herodotus. It is
possible that, according to Diodorus, he was a prisoner of war while
in Persia, though the well-known fact that Greek physicians were in
great request, and were always received there with favour, is quite
sufficient to account for his presence in that country. He wrote a
history of Persia and a treatise on India, containing many statements
formerly considered doubtful, but now proved to be founded on facts.

The persons who anointed the bodies of the athletes of ancient Greece,
preparatory to their entering the gymnasia, were called ALIPTÆ.
These persons taught gymnastic exercises, practised many operations
of surgery, and undertook the treatment of trifling diseases. The
external use of oil was intended to close the pores of the skin, so as
to prevent excessive perspiration. The oil was mixed with sand, and
was well rubbed into the skin. After the exercises, the athletes were
again anointed, to restore the tone of the muscles. The aliptæ would
naturally acquire considerable knowledge of the accidents and maladies
to which the human body was subject; accordingly, we find that they
not only undertook the treatment of fractures and dislocations, but
became the regular medical advisers of their patrons. ICCUS of Tarentum
devoted himself to dietetics. They were probably a superior class of
trainers. HERODICUS of Selymbria, a teacher of Hippocrates, treated
diseases by exercises. He is said to have been the first to demand a
fee in place of the presents which were given by patients formerly
to their doctors.[380] The gymnasia were dedicated to Apollo, the
god of physicians.[381] The directors of the institutions regulated
the diet of the young men, the sub-directors prescribed for their
diseases.[382] The inferiors, or bathers, bled, gave clysters, and
dressed wounds.[383]




CHAPTER II.

THE MEDICINE OF HIPPOCRATES AND HIS PERIOD.

 Hippocrates first delivered Medicine from the Thraldom of
 Superstition.—Dissection of the Human Body and Rise of
 Anatomy.—Hippocrates, Father of Medicine and Surgery.—The Law.—Plato.


Hippocrates, the “Father of Medicine,” was born at Cos,[384] 460
B.C. On his father’s side he was believed to be descended from
Æsculapius, and through his mother from Hercules. A member of the
family of the Asclepiadæ, of a descent of three hundred years, he
had the advantage of studying medicine under his father, Heraclides,
in the Asclepion of Cos. Herodicus of Selymbria taught him medical
gymnastics, and Democritus of Abdera and Gorgias of Leontini were
his masters in literature and philosophy. He travelled widely, and
taught and practised at Athens, dying at an age variously stated as
85, 90, 104, and 109. Fortunate in the opportunities offered by his
birth and position, he was still more fortunate in his time—the age
of Pericles—in which Greece reached its noblest development, and the
arts and sciences achieved their greatest triumphs. It was the age of
Socrates, Plato, Xenophon, Euripides, Sophocles, Æschylus, Pindar,
Aristophanes, Herodotus, Thucydides, and Phidias. Philosophy, poetry,
literature, and sculpture found in these great minds their most perfect
exponents. Medicine, in the person of Hippocrates, was to find its
first and most distinguished author-physician.

The Father of Medicine was therefore the worthy product of his
remarkable age. The genius which culminated in the works of the
golden age of Greece could scarcely have left medicine without her
Hippocrates; the harmony otherwise would have been incomplete.

The following genealogy of Hippocrates has been given by Tzetzes, but
Mr. Grote says it is wholly mythical:—

Æsculapius was the father of Podalirius, who was the father of
Hippolochus, who was the father of Sostratus, who was the father of
Cleomyttades, who was the father of Theodorus, who was the father of
Sostratus II., who was the father of Theodorus II., who was the father
of Sostratus III., who was the father of Nebrus, who was the father of
Gnosidicus, who was the father of Hippocrates I., who was the father of
Heraclides, who was the father of Hippocrates II., otherwise called the
Great Hippocrates.

Hippocrates was the first physician who delivered medicine from the
thraldom of superstition and the sophistries of philosophers, and
gave it an independent existence. It was impossible that our science
should make progress so long as men believed that disease was caused
by an angry demon or an offended divinity, and was only to be cured
by expelling the one or propitiating the other. Hippocrates, with a
discernment and a courage which was marvellous, considering his time,
declared that no disease whatever came from the gods, but was in every
instance traceable to a natural and intelligible cause. Before the
Asclepiadæ there was no medical science; before Hippocrates there was
no one mind with vision wide enough to take in all that had been done
before—to select the precious from the worthless and embody it in a
literature which remains to the present time a model of conciseness
and condensation, and a practical text-book on all that concerns the
art of healing as it was understood in his time. The minuteness of
his observations, his rational, and accurate interpretation of all he
saw, and his simple, methodical, truthful, and lucid descriptions of
everything which he has recorded excite the admiration and compel the
praise of all who have studied the works which he has left. Nor are
his candour, honesty, caution, and experience less to be extolled. He
confesses his errors, fully explains the measures adopted to cure his
cases, and candidly admits that in one series of forty-two patients
whom he attended only seventeen recovered, the others having perished
in spite of the means he had proposed to save them. He was probably
the first public teacher of the healing-art; his counsels were not
whispered in the secret meetings of sacerdotal assemblies. He was the
first to disclose the secrets of the art to the world; to strip it of
the veil of mystery with which countless generations of magicians,
thaumaturgists, and priestly healers had shrouded it, and to stand
before his pupils to give oral instruction in anatomy and the other
branches of his profession. Had he not been the Father of Medicine,
he would have been known as one of the greatest of the philosophers.
He first recognised Φύσις—Nature in the treatment of disease. Nature,
he declared, was all-sufficient for our healing. She knows of herself
all that is necessary for us, and so he called her “the just.” He
attributed to her a faculty, Δύναμις; physicians are but her servants.
The governing faculty, Δύναμις, nourishes, preserves, and increases all
things.

Galen states that the greater part of Aristotle’s physiology was
taken from Hippocrates. It has been the custom to make light of his
anatomical knowledge, and to say that in face of the difficulty, if
not impossibility, of procuring subjects for dissection, he could have
had but little exact knowledge of the human body; but it is certain
that by some means or other he must have dissected it. In proof of this
it is only necessary to mention his treatise _On the Articulations_,
especially that part of it which relates to the dislocation of the
shoulder joint. Dr. Adams, in one of his valuable notes on the works of
Hippocrates,[385] says: “The language of our author in this place puts
it beyond all doubt that human dissection was practised in his age.” In
Ashurst’s _International Encyclopædia of Surgery_[386] his descriptions
of all dislocations are declared to be wonderfully accurate; and the
writer adds that it is the greatest error imaginable to suppose,
with the common conceit of our day, that all ingenious and useful
improvements in surgery belong to the present age. In the treatise on
the Sacred Disease (epilepsy), his description of the brain in man
proves that he was acquainted with its dissection.

In the treatise on the heart, again, the construction of that organ
in the human body is referred to. Other allusions to the internal
structure of the human frame in the Hippocratic treatises serve to
confirm our opinion; and if it be objected that some of these are
probably not genuine, they must at least be as old as his period,
and it was far more likely that he should have written or inspired
them than that they should have emanated from an inferior source.
Those who argue to the contrary do so on the same grounds as the
Greek commentators, who say that the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ were not
written by Homer, but by some other poet of the same name. Dr. Adams
is confident, from his familiarity with the works of Hippocrates, that
the knowledge of human anatomy exhibited therein had its origin in
actual dissection, and he adds that: “I do not at present recollect a
single instance of mistake committed by him in any of his anatomical
descriptions, if we except that with regard to the sutures of the head,
and even in that case I have endeavoured to show that the meaning of
the passage is very equivocal.”[387] There is no doubt, in fact, that a
great deal more human dissection went on than the Greek doctors dared
to acknowledge for fear of exciting popular prejudice. Less than a
hundred years after the death of Hippocrates there was abundant and
open dissection of the human body in the schools of Alexandria, and it
is incredible that the practice only received popular sanction at that
particular time. Yet the anatomy of Hippocrates was very imperfect.
The nerves, sinews, and ligaments were confounded together, all being
classed as νεῦρον or τόνος.

The blood-vessels were supposed to contain both blood and air, and were
called φλέβες; the trachea was called an “artery.”

The brain was considered as merely a gland which condenses the
ascending vapours into mucus. The office of the nerves was to convey
the animal spirits throughout the body. We must not forget that the
science of anatomy was extremely imperfect even at the beginning of the
present century.

“When,” says Littré,[388] “one searches into the history of medicine
and the commencement of the science, the first body of doctrine that
one meets with is the collection of writings known under the name
of the works of Hippocrates. The science mounts up directly to that
origin, and there stops. Not that it had not been cultivated earlier,
and had not given rise to even numerous productions; but everything
that had been made before the physician of Cos has perished. We have
only remaining of them scattered and unconnected fragments. The works
of Hippocrates have alone escaped destruction; and by a singular
circumstance there exists a great gap after them as well as before
them. The medical works from Hippocrates to the establishment of the
school of Alexandria, and those of that school itself, are completely
lost, except some quotations and passages preserved in the later
writers; so that the writings of Hippocrates remain alone amongst the
ruins of ancient medical literature.”

It is vain to inquire how Hippocrates acquired a knowledge which seems
to us so far in advance of his age. Was Greek wisdom derived from the
East, or was its philosophy the offspring of the soil of Hellas? Such
questions have often been discussed, but to little purpose. There would
seem to be every reason to suppose that Greek medicine was indigenous.
We have no means of knowing how long philosophy and medicine had been
united before the time of Hippocrates. The honour of affecting the
alliance has been ascribed to Pythagoras.

Several of the Greek philosophers speculated about medicine. We have
seen that besides Pythagoras, Empedocles and Democritus did so,
although it is not probable that they followed it as a profession. The
Asclepiadæ probably brought medicine to a high state of perfection, but
the work these priest-physicians did is a sealed book to us. All was
darkness till Hippocrates appeared.

In his treatise _On Ancient Medicine_, he says that men first learned
from experience the science of dietetics; they were compelled to
ascertain the properties of vegetable productions as articles of
food. Then they learned that the food which is suitable in health
is unsuitable in sickness, and thus they applied themselves to the
discovery of the proper rules of diet in disease; and it was the
accumulation of the facts bearing on this subject which was the origin
of the art of medicine. “The basis of his system was a rational
experience, and not a blind empiricism; so that the empirics in after
ages had no good grounds for claiming him as belonging to their
sect.”[389]

He assiduously applied himself to the study of the natural history of
diseases, especially with the view to determine their tendencies to
death or recovery. In every case he asked himself what would be the
probable end of the disorder if left to itself. Prognosis, then, is
one of the chief characteristics of Hippocratic medicine. He hated
all charlatanism, and was free from all popular superstition. When we
reflect on the medicine of the most highly civilized nations which we
have considered at length in the preceding pages, and remember how full
of absurdities, of magic, amulet lore, and other things calculated
to impose on the credulity of the people, were their attempts at
healing, we shall be inclined to say, that the most wonderful thing
in the history of Hippocrates was his complete divorce from the evil
traditions of the past. Although he forsook philosophy as an ally
of medicine, his system was founded in the physical philosophy of
the elements which the ancient Greeks propounded, and which we have
attempted to explain. There was an all-pervading spiritual essence
which is ever striving to maintain all things in their natural
condition; ever rectifying their derangements; ever restoring them to
the original and perfect pattern. He called that spiritual essence
Nature. “Nature is the physician of diseases.”[390] Here, then, we have
the enunciation of the doctrine of the _Vis Medicatrix Naturæ_. In his
attempts to aid Nature, the physician must regulate his treatment “to
do good, or at least, to do no harm”;[391] yet he bled, cupped, and
scarified. In constipation he prescribed laxative drugs, as mercury
(not the mineral, of course, but _Mercurialis perennis_), beet, and
cabbage, also elaterium, scammony, and other powerful cathartics. He
used white hellebore boldly, and when narcotics were required had
recourse to mandragora, henbane, and probably to poppy-juice.

He is said to have been the discoverer of the principles of derivation
and revulsion in the treatment of diseases.[392]

Sydenham called Hippocrates “the Romulus of medicine, whose heaven
was the empyrean of his art. He it is whom we can never duly praise.”
He terms him “that divine old man,” and declares that he laid the
immovable foundations of the whole superstructure of medicine when he
taught that _our natures are the physicians of our diseases_.[393]

He was Father of Surgery as well as of medicine. Eight of his seventeen
genuine works are strictly surgical. By an ingenious arrangement of
apparatus he was enabled to practise extension and counter-extension.
He insisted on the most exact co-aptation of fractured bones, declaring
that it was disgraceful to allow a patient to recover with a crooked
or shortened limb. His splints were probably quite as good as ours,
and his bandaging left nothing to be desired. When the ends of the
bones projected in cases of compound fractures, they were carefully
resected. In fracture of the skull with depressed bone the trepan
was used, and in cases where blood or pus had accumulated they were
skilfully evacuated. He boldly and freely opened abscesses of the
liver and kidneys. The thoracic cavity was explored by percussion and
auscultation for detection of fluids, and when they were discovered
paracentesis (tapping) was performed. This was also done in cases of
abdominal dropsies. The rectum was examined by an appropriate speculum,
fistula-in-ano was treated by the ligature, and hæmorrhoids were
operated upon. Stiff leather shoes and an admirable system of bandaging
were employed in cases of talipes. The bladder was explored by sounds
for the detection of calculi; gangrenous and mangled limbs were
amputated; the dead fœtus was extracted from the mother. Venesection,
scarification, and cupping were all employed.[394]

He resected bones at the joints. In the treatment of ulcers he used
sulphate of copper, sulphate of zinc, verdigris, lead, sulphur,
arsenic, alum, etc. He came very near indeed to the antiseptic system
in surgery when he made use of “raw tar water” (a crude sort of
carbolic acid, in fact) in the treatment of wounds. Suppositories were
employed.

In Dr. Adams’ _Life of Hippocrates_,[395] he says: “In surgery he
was a bold operator. He fearlessly, and as we would now think, in
some cases unnecessarily, perforated the skull with the trepan and
the trephine in injuries of the head. He opened the chest also in
empyema and hydrothorax. His extensive practice, and no doubt his great
familiarity with the accidents occurring at the public games of his
country, must have furnished him with ample opportunities of becoming
acquainted with dislocations and fractures of all kinds; and how well
he had profited by the opportunities which he thus enjoyed, every page
of his treatises _On Fractures_ and _On the Articulations_ abundantly
testifies. In fact, until within a very recent period, the modern plan
of treatment in such cases was not at all to be compared with his
skilful mode of adjusting fractured bones, and of securing them with
waxed bandages. In particular, his description of the accidents which
occur at the elbow and hip-joints will be allowed, even at the present
day, to display a most wonderful acquaintance with the subject. In
the treatment of dislocations, when human strength was not sufficient
to restore the displacement, he skilfully availed himself of all the
mechanical powers which were then known. In his views with regard to
the nature of club-foot, it might have been affirmed of him a few years
ago that he was twenty-four centuries in advance of his profession,
when he stated that in this case there is no dislocation, but merely a
declination of the foot; and that in infancy, by means of methodical
bandaging, a cure may in most cases be effected without any surgical
operation. In a word, until the days of Delpech and Stromeyer, no
one entertained ideas so sound and scientific on the nature of this
deformity as Hippocrates.”

Dr. Adams, recapitulating the general results of the investigations as
to the genuineness of the Hippocratic books, states that a considerable
portion of them are not the work of Hippocrates himself. The works
almost universally admitted to be genuine are: _The Prognostics_, _On
Airs_, etc., _On Regimen in Acute Diseases_, seven of the books of
_Aphorisms_, _Epidemics_, I. and III., _On the Articulations_, _On
Fractures_, _On the Instruments of Reduction_, _The Oath_.

The following are almost certainly genuine: _On Ancient Medicine_, _On
the Surgery_, _The Law_, _On Ulcers_, _On Fistulæ_, _On Hæmorrhoids_,
_On the Sacred Disease_.[396]


THE LAW.

1. Medicine is of all the arts the most noble; but owing to the
ignorance of those who practise it, and of those who, inconsiderately,
form a judgment of them, it is at present far behind all the other
arts. Their mistake appears to me to arise principally from this, that
in the cities there is no punishment connected with the practice of
medicine (and with it alone) except disgrace, and that does not hurt
those who are familiar with it. Such persons are like the figures[397]
which are introduced in tragedies, for as they have the shape, and
dress, and personal appearance of an actor, but are not actors, so also
physicians are many in title but very few in quality.

2. Whoever is to acquire a competent knowledge of medicine, ought
to be possessed of the following advantages: a natural disposition;
instruction; a favourable position for the study; early tuition; love
of labour; leisure. First of all, a natural talent is required; for
when nature opposes, everything else is vain; but when nature leads
the way to what is most excellent, instruction in the art takes place,
which the student must try to appropriate to himself by reflection,
becoming an early pupil in a place well adapted for instruction. He
must also bring to the task a love of labour and perseverance, so that
the instruction taking root may bring forth proper and abundant fruits.

3. Instruction in medicine is like the culture of the productions of
the earth. For our natural disposition is, as it were, the soil; the
tenets of our teacher are, as it were, the seed; instruction in youth
is like the planting of the seed in the ground at the proper season;
the place where the instruction is communicated is like the food
imparted to vegetables by the atmosphere; diligent study is like the
cultivation of the fields; and it is time which imparts strength to all
things and brings them to maturity.

4. Having brought all these requisites to the study of medicine, and
having acquired a true knowledge of it, we shall then, in travelling
through the cities, be esteemed physicians not only in name but in
reality. But inexperience is a bad treasure, and a bad friend to
those who possess it, whether in opinion or reality, being devoid of
self-reliance and contentedness, and the nurse both of timidity and
audacity. For timidity betrays a want of power, and audacity a want of
skill. There are, indeed, two things, knowledge and opinion, of which
the one makes its possessor really to know, the other to be ignorant.

5. Those things which are sacred are to be imparted only to sacred
persons; and it is not lawful to impart them to the profane until they
have been initiated in the mysteries of the science.

The “Hippocratic collections” of works which have been attributed to
Hippocrates, but the greater part of which were neither written by him,
nor compiled from notes taken by his students, consists of eighty-seven
treatises.

Hippocrates believed in the influence of the imagination of pregnant
women on the child in the womb. He forbad nurses to eat food of
an acrid, salt, or acid nature, and observed that infants during
the period of dentition were liable to fevers, bowel troubles, and
convulsions, especially if there was constipation. He mentions thrush
as one of the diseases of dentition (_De Dent._). He recommends
friction for contracting or relaxing the body according as it is
applied in a hard or soft manner. Very fully he discourses on the evil
effects of plethora, and recommends purging, emetics, warm baths, and
bleeding, for reducing the system (_De Dietol._, iii. 16 _et seq._).
He constantly advises gentle purgatives as a means of keeping the
body in health. His favourite laxative medicine was the herb mercury.
The administration of clysters is recommended; this treatment was
evidently derived from the Egyptians. What are called errhines or
sternutatories—_i.e._, medicines which, applied to the nose, excite
sneezing—were described by Hippocrates as medicines which purge the
head. Though he fully describes the effects of baths, he speaks
unfavourably of thermal springs as being hard and heating. He insists
that the diet should be full in winter and spare in summer (_Aphor._,
i. 18). He disapproves of the habit of eating a full dinner (_De Vet.
Med._). He condemns the use of new bread. The nutritious properties of
pulse in general are insisted upon. He calls the flesh of fowls one
of the lightest kinds of food (_De Affect._, 46), and says that eggs
are nutritious, and strengthening, but flatulent. He remarks that the
flesh of wild animals is more digestible than that of domesticated.
He objects to goat’s flesh as having all the bad qualities of beef,
which he calls a strong, astringent, and indigestible article of diet.
Milk, he says, sometimes causes the formation of stones in the bladder
(_De Ær. Aquis et Locis_, 24). Dr. Francis Adams says this opinion was
adopted by all the ancient physicians. Cheese he considers flatulent
and indigestible. Fishes are light food; sea fish are lighter and
better for delicate persons than fresh-water fish (_De Affect._, 46).
Honey, when eaten with other food, is nutritious, but is injurious when
taken alone.

Hippocrates opposed all hypothesis in medicine, and grounded his
opinions on disease on actual observation. He insisted that the
essence of fever is heat mixed up with noxious qualities. He was
the great master of prognostics. His work _Prorrhetica and Coacæ_,
says Dr. Francis Adams, “contains a rich treasure of observations
which cannot be too much explored by the student of medicine. His
prognostics are founded upon the appearance of the face, eyes, tongue,
the voice, hearing, the state of the hypochondriac region, the abdomen,
the general system, sleep, respiration, and the excretions. We can
do little more, in this place, than express our high sense of the
value of the _Hippocratic Treatises on Prognostics_, and recommend
the study of them to all members of the profession who would wish
to learn the true inductive system of cultivating medicine.” (_The
Seven Books of Paulus Ægineta_, by Francis Adams.) The state of the
countenance which immediately precedes death is called by physicians
the _Facies Hippocratica_, because Hippocrates described it, calling
it πρόσωποι διαφθορή (_Coac. Prænot._, 212). The nose is sharp, the
eyes hollow, the temples sunk, the ears cold and contracted, and their
lobes inverted; the skin about the forehead hard, tense, and dry; the
countenance pale, greenish, or dark. In fevers he was greatly attached
to the importance of the critical days. Galen adopted his list of
critical days with little alteration. Hippocrates does not seem to
have paid much attention to the pulse, or if he did he attached little
importance to it; even in describing epidemical fevers he neglects to
mention the characteristics of the pulse. Galen, however, affirms that
he was not altogether ignorant of it. He quite correctly described the
characteristics of healthy stools, and pointed out that they should
in colour be yellowish, if too yellow there is too much bile, if not
yellow at all there was a stoppage of the passage of bile to the
intestines. His indications from the state of the urine are not less
valuable. How wise are his observations on the treatment of febrile
diseases! “To be able to tell what had preceded them; to know the
present state and foretell the future; to have two objects in view,
either to do good or at least do no harm” (_Epidem._, i. 7). He it was
who formulated the rule all physicians have since followed that a fluid
diet is proper in all febrile affections. He advised cold sponging in
ardent fevers—a method of treatment recently revived and of great value
(_De Rat. Vict. Acut._). He laid it down that diseases in general may
be said to arise either from the food we eat or the air we breathe. In
cases of fever he allowed his patients to drink freely of barley-water
and cold acidulated drinks. In this he was much in advance of the
medical science of the time. He has described cases of “brain fever,”
one of the few complaints which novelists permit their heroes to suffer
from. They appear to have been cases of remittent fever rather than
true inflammation of the brain. We may estimate the wonderful extent
of the medical science of Hippocrates by the fact that he vigorously
opposed the popular belief of the period, that epilepsy was due to
demoniacal influence. He explains that the lower animals are subject
to the same disorder, and that in them it is often associated with
water in the brain. There is really no doubt that the _morbus sacer_ of
the ancients and the cases of demoniacal possession of which we read
were cases of epilepsy (_Hippoc. de Morbo Sacro_). Concerning apoplexy
he says that a slight attack is difficult to cure, and a severe one
utterly incurable. The cause of the attack he considered was turgidity
of the veins. We know it to be often associated with cerebral
hæmorrhage or sanguineous apoplexy and sometimes with effusion of serum
= serous apoplexy. Hippocrates therefore came very near the truth. He
advised bleeding, which is still recommended but is not often practised
in England; and he very justly said that the malady occurs most
frequently between the age of forty and sixty (_Aphoris._, ii. 42). In
certain forms of ophthalmia he advises free purgation, bleeding, and
the use of wine; and this accords with the best modern practice, if for
venesection, we substitute vesication. His treatment of nasal polypus
by the ligature is not unlike our own; and nothing could be better
than his plan for dealing with quinsey and allied complaints, viz.,
hot fomentations, warm gargles and tinctures, with free purgation. He
disapproves of a practice too often followed by surgeons to-day, of
scarifying the tonsils when swollen and red. In cases of inflammation
of the lungs he advised bleeding, purging, and cooling drinks. Laënnec,
the great French physician, who invented the stethoscope, highly
praises Hippocrates for his knowledge of phthisis, and the diagnostic
value of his tests of the nature of the sputa in that disease. In cases
of empyema, or the formation and accumulation of pus in the chest, he
directs us to make an incision into the pleural cavity—an operation
which has been revived in modern times under the name of “paracentesis
thoracis.”

He declares the loss of hair and the diarrhœa of phthisis to be fatal
signs, and his description of hydrothorax, or dropsy of the chest,
has been highly praised by the greatest authorities. He says that
phthisis is most common between the ages of eighteen and thirty-six
(see _Hippoc. de Morbis_, ii. 45; _Coacæ Prænat., et alibi_). For
pleurisy his treatment is practically the same as that followed at
the present day. He advised the administration of flour and milk in
diarrhœa—an exceedingly useful remedy—and treated the pains of colic by
warm injections, warm baths, fomentations, soporifics and purgatives,
as the case might require. He was wise enough to know that stone of
the bladder was a product of a morbid condition of the urine, and
said that when it had fairly formed nothing but an operation for its
removal was of any value. He recognised the disease known as hydatids
of the liver, and directed that abscesses of that organ should be
opened by the cautery. His account of the causes and treatment of
dropsy is fairly accurate according to our present knowledge. He
approved of paracentesis abdominis (tapping) in cases of ascites, and
describes the operation. He recognised the incurability of true cancer.
Many of his treatises on the disorders of women prove that they were
well understood in his day, and on the whole were properly treated.
Difficult labour was managed not so differently from our modern methods
as might be supposed. His account of hip-joint disease is remarkably
accurate. Gout was well understood by our author, and probably his
treatment by purgation and careful dieting was on the whole as
successful as our own.

Hippocrates speaks of leprosy as more a blemish than a disease; it
is probable, however, that the works in which he is supposed to
allude to it are not genuine. He points out the danger of opening
the round tumour on tendons, called a ganglion. In his book called
_Prognostics_, he refers to the danger of an erysipelas being
translated to an internal part. Cold applications, he says, are useful
in this disease when there is no ulceration, but prejudicial when
ulceration is present. Struma or scrofula is described by Hippocrates
(_De Glandulis_) as being one of the worst diseases of the neck. In
the treatise (_De Ulceribus_) on ulcers, he particularly praises wine
as a lotion for ulcers, and there is good reason to believe that we
might advantageously revert to this treatment. Some of the drugs
which he recommends for foul ulcers, such as frankincense and myrrh,
are excellent, and owe their efficacy to their “newly discovered”
antiseptic action. He recommends also arsenic and verdigris. The
actual cautery or burning applied freely to the head is recommended
in diseases of the eyes and other complaints. He describes water on
the brain in the treatise _De Morbis_, ii. 15, and even recommends
perforation of the skull or trephining quite in the modern way. Opening
the temporal veins is advised for obstinate headaches. Although no
express treatise on bleeding is found amongst the works of Hippocrates,
he practised venesection freely in various diseases. He forbids the
surgeon to interfere with non-ulcerated cancers, adding that if the
cancer be healed the patient soon dies, while if let alone he may live
a long time (_Aph._, vi. 38). He warns us that the sudden evacuation of
the matter of empyema or of the water in dropsy proves fatal. He speaks
of evacuating the fluid with an instrument similar to that which we
call a trochar. He approves of scarification of the ankles in dropsy
of the lower extremities; this is quite modern treatment. In cases of
dislocation of the hip-joint from the formation of a collection of
humours, he recommends burning so as to dry up the redundant humours.
He minutely describes the cure of fistula with the ligature in his work
_De Fistulis_, which, even if not a genuine treatise of Hippocrates, is
extremely ancient, and was considered authentic by Galen. Hæmorrhoids
or piles are to be ligatured with very thick thread, or destroyed with
red-hot irons. Varicose veins are to be treated by small punctures,
not freely opened (_De Ulceribus_, 16). Hippocrates considered the
extraction of weapons to be one of the most important departments of
surgery. In his treatise _De Medico_, he says that surgery can only be
properly learned by attaching one’s self to the army. Homer said,—

    “The man of medicine can in worth with many warriors vie,
    Who knows the weapons to excise, and soothing salves apply.”

Hippocrates treats of fractures in his books _De Fracturis_ (_De
Articulis_; _De Vulner. Capit._; _Officina Medici_). He insists that
no injuries to the head are to be considered as trifling; even wounds
of the scalp may prove dangerous if neglected. Fissures, contusions,
and fractures of the cranium are minutely explained and appropriate
treatment suggested. He describes the trephine under the name of
τρύπανον, _i.e._ the trepan. He says that convulsions are the frequent
consequence of head injuries, and that they occur on the opposite
side of the body to that in which the brain injury is seated. One of
the most valuable legacies of the ancients is this profoundly learned
treatise of the Father of Medicine, and it proves to us how high a
point the surgery of ancient Greece had reached. He noticed a certain
movement of the brain during respiration, a swelling up in expiration
and a falling down during inspiration; and although several great
authorities of the past denied the accuracy of this observation, it has
since been shown to be perfectly correct. (See _Paulus Ægineta_, Dr. F.
Adams’ edit., vol. ii. p. 442.) In cases of fracture of the lower jaw,
our author directs that the teeth separated at the broken part are to
be fastened together and bound with gold wire. So accurately does he
describe this fracture that Paulus Ægineta transcribes it almost word
for word from the _De Articulus_. His method of treating fracture of
the clavicle is admirable; in fracture of the ribs he observes that
when the broken ends of the bone are not pushed inwards, it seldom
happens that any unpleasant symptoms supervene. In fractures of the arm
he minutely and precisely indicates the correct principles on which
they are to be treated, and insists strongly on the necessity of having
the arm and wrist carefully suspended in a broad soft sling, and that
the hand be placed neither too high nor too low. Hippocrates could
learn very little from our modern surgeons in the treatment of such
injuries. In cases of broken thigh he has indicated all the dangers and
difficulties attending the management of this accident; his splints and
bandages are applied much as we apply them at the present time, and his
suggestions for ensuring a well-united bone without deformity of the
limb are invaluable. In fractures of the thigh and leg-bones he lays
great stress on the attention necessary to the state of the heel. In
those of the foot he warns against the danger of attempting to walk too
soon. In compound fractures compresses of wine and oil are to be used,
and splints are not to be applied till the wound puts on a healthy
appearance. He is fully aware of the peculiarly dangerous character
of such injuries, and his observations read like extracts from a
modern text-book of surgery. “No author,” says Dr. Francis Adams,
the learned translator of the works of Paulus Ægineta, “has given so
complete a view of the accidents to which the elbow joint is subject as
Hippocrates.”

PLATO (B.C. 427-347) in its philosophical aspect studied medicine,
not with any idea of practising the art, but merely as a speculative
contemplation. The human soul is an emanation from the absolute
intelligence. The world is composed of the four elements. Fire
consists of pyramidal, earth of cubical, air of octagonal, and water
of twenty-sided atoms. Besides these is the æther. Everything in the
body has in view the spirit. The heart is the seat of the mind, the
lungs cool the heart, the liver serves the lower desires and is useful
for divination. The spleen is the abode for the impurities of the
blood. The intestines serve to detain the food, so that it might not be
necessary to be constantly taking nourishment. The inward pressure of
the air accounts for the breathing. The muscles and bones protect the
marrow against heat and cold. The marrow consists of triangles, and the
brain is the most perfect form of marrow. When the soul is separated
from the marrow, death occurs. Sight is caused by the union of the
light which flows into and out of the eyes, hearing in the shock of air
communicated to the brain and the blood. Taste is due to a solution
of sapid atoms by means of small vessels, which vessels conduct the
dissolved atoms to the heart and soul. Smell is very transitory,
not being founded on any external image. The uterus is a wild beast
exciting inordinate desires. Disease is caused by a disturbance of
the quantity and quality of the fluids. Inflammations are due to
aberrations of the bile. The various fevers are due to the influence of
the elements. Mental diseases are the results of bodily maladies and
bad education. Diseases fly away before appropriate drugs. Physicians
must be the rulers of the sick in order to cure them, but they must not
be money-makers.[398]

In the _Republic of Plato_, Book III., we find that medical aid was
largely in request in Greece to relieve the indolent and voluptuous
from the consequences of self-indulgence. It was thought by Socrates
disgraceful to compel the clever sons of Asclepius to attend to such
diseases as flatulence and catarrh; it seemed ridiculous to the
philosopher to pay so much attention to regimen and diet as to drag
on a miserable existence as an invalid in the doctor’s hands. When a
carpenter was ill, he expected his doctor to cure him with an emetic or
a purge, the cautery or an operation; if he were ordered a long course
of diet, he would tell his doctor that he had no time to be ill, and
he would go about his business regardless of consequences. Æsculapius,
it was maintained, revealed the healing art for the benefit of those
whose constitutions were naturally sound; he expelled their disorders
by drugs and the use of the knife, without interfering with their
usual avocations; but when he found they were hopelessly incurable,
he would not attempt to prolong a miserable life by rules and diet,
as such persons would be of no use either to themselves or the state.
Constitutionally diseased persons and the intemperate livers were to
be left to be dealt with by Nature, so that they might die of their
diseases.




CHAPTER III.

POST-HIPPOCRATIC GREEK MEDICINE.—THE SCHOOLS OF MEDICINE.

 The Dogmatic School.—Praxagoras of Cos.—Aristotle.—The School
 of Alexandria.—Theophrastus the Botanist.—The great Anatomists,
 Erasistratus and Hierophilus, and the Schools they founded.—The
 Empiric School.


THE DOGMATIC SCHOOL.

It was only natural that the philosophical Greeks should discuss
medicine at as great a length as they discussed philosophy;
accordingly, we find that no sooner had our art taken its place
amongst the subjects worthy of being seriously considered by the Greek
intellect, than it was as much talked about as practised, and wrangled
over as though it were a system of religion. Sects arose which opposed
each other with the greatest vehemence; and Hippocrates had not long
formulated his teaching when his disciples elevated his principles
into a dogmatism which challenged, and shortly provoked, opposition
of various kinds. Then arose the schools of medicine which ultimately
became famous, as those of the DOGMATISTS, EMPIRICS, METHODISTS,
PNEUMATISTS, etc. The DOGMATISTS boasted of being the Rational and
Logical school. They held that there is a certain connection between
all the arts and sciences, and that it is the duty of the physician to
avail himself of all sorts of knowledge on every subject which bears
any relationship to his own. They made, therefore, the most careful
inquiry into the remote and proximate causes of disease. They examined
the influence on the human body of airs, waters, places, occupations,
diet, seasons, etc. They formulated general rules, not of universal
application, but modified their treatment according to circumstances,
availing themselves of whatever aid they could obtain from any source.
Hippocrates had said, “The physician who is also a philosopher is equal
to the gods,” and the Dogmatists elevated this into an article of their
creed. Hippocrates, Galen, Oribasius, Ætius, Paulus Ægineta, and the
Arab physicians were dogmatists. The founders of the school were the
sons of Hippocrates—Thessalus and Draco. The former was the eldest son
of the great physician, and was the more famous of the two. He passed
a great part of his life as physician in the court of Archelaus, king
of Macedonia.[399] His brother, Draco, was physician to Queen Roxana,
wife of Alexander the Great.

We may say, therefore, that the oldest, most famous, and worthy of the
ancient medical sects arose about 400 B.C., and retained its power
over the medical profession till the rise of the Empirical sect in
the Alexandrian school of philosophy. We are indebted to Celsus for a
lucid and admirable exposition of the doctrines professed by these two
medical parties.[400]

The Dogmatists maintained that it was not enough for the physician to
know the mere symptoms of his patient’s malady. It does not suffice to
know the _evident causes_ of the disorder, but he must acquaint himself
with the _hidden causes_. To acquire this knowledge of the _hidden
causes_, he must study the _hidden parts_, and the natural actions and
functions of the body in health. He must know the principles on which
the human machinery is constructed before he can scientifically treat
the accidents and disturbances to which it is liable. It was not,
therefore, a mere subject of philosophical interest to hold with some
physicians that diseases proceed from excess or deficiency of one or
other of the four elements, or with others, that the various humours or
the respiration were at fault. It was not of merely academic interest
to suppose that the abnormal flow of the blood caused inflammations,
or that corpuscles blocked up the invisible passages. The doctor must
do more than speculate on these things in his discussions. He must
have a theory upon them which he could apply to the treatment of his
patients, and the best physician would be the one who best knew how
the disease originated. Experiments without reasoning were valueless;
their chief use was to inform the experimenter whether he had reasoned
justly or conjectured fortunately. When the physician is confronted by
a new form of disease for which no remedy has been discovered, he must
know its cause and origin, or his practice will be mere guess-work.
Anybody can discover the evident causes—heat, cold, over-eating.
These things the least instructed physician will probably know. It is
the knowledge of hidden causes which makes the superior man. He who
aspires to be instructed must know what we now call physiology—why we
breathe, why we eat, what happens to the food which we swallow, why the
arteries pulsate, why we sleep, etc. The man who cannot explain these
phenomena is not a competent doctor. He must have frequently inspected
dead bodies, and examined carefully their internal parts; but they
maintained that it was much the better way to open living persons, as
Herophilus and Erasistratus did, so that they could acquaint themselves
in life with the structures whose disturbance or disease causes the
sufferings which they were called upon to alleviate. What is known as
the “Humoral Pathology” formed the most essential part of the system of
the Dogmatists.

Humoral pathology explains all diseases as caused by the mixture of
the four cardinal humours; viz., the blood, bile, mucus or phlegm,
and water. Hippocrates leaned towards it, but it was Plato who
developed it. The stomach is the common source of all these humours.
When diseases develop, they attract these humours. The source of the
bile is the liver; of the mucus, the head; of the water, the spleen.
Bile causes all acute diseases, mucus in the head causes catarrhs and
rheumatism, dropsy depends on the spleen.

DIOCLES CARYSTIUS, a famous Greek physician, said by Pliny[401] to have
been next in age and fame to Hippocrates himself, lived in the fourth
century B.C. He wrote several treatises on medicine, of which the
titles and some fragments are preserved by Galen, Cælius Aurelianus,
Oribasius, and others. His letter to King Antigonus, entitled “An
Epistle on Preserving Health,” is inserted at the end of the first book
of Paulus Ægineta, and was probably addressed to Antigonus Gonatus,
king of Macedonia, who died B.C. 239. This treatise is so valuable a
summary of the medical teaching of the time that it will be useful
to insert it in this place. “Since of all kings you are the most
skilled in the arts, and have lived very long, and are skilled in
all philosophy, and have attained the highest rank in mathematics,
I, supposing that the science which treats of all things that relate
to health is a branch of philosophy becoming a king and befitting to
you, have written you this account of the origin of diseases, of the
symptoms which precede them, and of the modes by which they may be
alleviated. For neither does a storm gather in the heavens but it is
preceded by certain signs which seamen and men of much skill attend
to, nor does any disease attack the human frame without having some
precursory symptom. If, then, you will only be persuaded by what we
say regarding them, you may attain a correct acquaintance with these
things. We divide the human body into four parts: the head, the chest,
the belly, and the bladder. When a disease is about to fix in the
head, it is usually announced beforehand by vertigo, pain in the head,
heaviness in the eyebrows, noise in the ears, and throbbing of the
temples; the eyes water in the morning, attended with dimness of sight;
the sense of smell is lost, and the gums become swelled. When any such
symptoms occur, the head ought to be purged, not indeed with any strong
medicine, but, taking the tops of hyssop and sweet marjoram, pound them
and boil them in a pot, with half a hemina of must or rob; rinse the
mouth with this in the morning before eating, and evacuate the humours
by gargling. There is no gentler remedy than this for affections of
the head. Mustard in warm, honied water also answers the purpose very
well. Take a mouthful of this in the morning before eating, gargle and
evacuate the humours. The head also should be warmed by covering it
in such a manner as that the phlegm may be readily discharged. Those
who neglect these symptoms are apt to be seized with the following
disorders: inflammations of the eyes, cataracts, pain of the ears as
if from a fracture, strumous affections of the neck, sphacelus of
the brain, catarrh, quinsy, running ulcers called achores, caries,
enlargement of the uvula, defluxion of the hairs, ulceration of the
head, pain in the teeth. When some disease is about to fall upon the
chest, it is usually announced by some of the following symptoms: There
are profuse sweats over the whole body, and particularly about the
chest, the tongue is rough, expectoration saltish, bitter, or bilious,
pains suddenly seizing the sides or shoulder-blades, frequent yawning,
watchfulness, oppressed respiration, thirst after sleep, despondency of
mind, coldness of the breast and arms, trembling of the hands. These
symptoms may be relieved in the following manner: Procure vomiting
after a moderate meal without medicine. Vomiting also when the stomach
is empty will answer well; to produce which first swallow some small
radishes, cresses, rocket, mustard and purslain, and then by drinking
warm water procure vomiting. Upon those who neglect these symptoms
the following diseases are apt to supervene: pleurisy, peripneumony,
melancholy, acute fevers, frenzy, lethargy, ardent fever attended with
hiccough. When any disease is about to attack the bowels, some of the
following symptoms announce its approach: In the first place, the belly
is griped and disordered, the food and drink seem bitter, heaviness
of the knees, inability to bend the loins, pains over the whole body
unexpectedly occurring, numbness of the legs, slight fever. When any
of these occur, it will be proper to loosen the belly by a suitable
diet without medicine. There are many articles of this description
which one may use with safety, such as beets boiled in honeyed water,
boiled garlic, mallows, dock, the herb mercury, honied cakes; for all
these things are laxative of the bowels. Or, if any of these symptoms
increase, mix bastard saffron with all these decoctions, for thereby
they will be rendered sweeter and less dangerous. The smooth cabbage
boiled in a large quantity of water is also beneficial. This decoction,
with honey and salt, may be drunk to the amount of about four heminæ,
or the water of chick-peas and tares boiled may be drunk in the same
manner. Those who neglect the afore-mentioned symptoms are apt to be
seized with the following affections: diarrhœa, dysentery, lientery,
ileus, ischiatic disease, tertian fever, gout, apoplexy, hæmorrhoids,
rheumatism. When any disease is about to seize the bladder, the
following symptoms are its usual precursors: A sense of repletion after
taking even a small quantity of food, flatulence, eructation, paleness
of the whole body, deep sleep, urine pale and passed with difficulty,
swellings about the privy parts. When any of these symptoms appear,
their safest cure will be by aromatic diuretics. Thus, the roots of
fennel and parsley may be infused in white fragrant wine, and drunk
every day when the stomach is empty in the morning, to the amount of
two cyathi, with water in which carrot, myrtle, or elecampane has been
macerated (you may use any of these you please, for all are useful);
and the infusion of chick-peas in water in like manner. On those who
neglect these symptoms the following diseases are apt to supervene:
dropsy, enlargement of the spleen, pain of the liver, calculus,
inflammation of the kidney, strangury, distension of the belly.
Regarding all these symptoms, it may be remarked that children ought to
be treated with gentler remedies, and adults with more active. I have
now to give you an account of the seasons of the year in which each of
these complaints occur, and what things ought to be taken and avoided.
I begin with the winter solstice. _Of the winter solstice_: This season
disposes men to catarrhs and defluxions until the vernal equinox. It
will be proper then to take such things as are of a heating nature,
drink wine little diluted, or drink pure wine, or of the decoction of
marjoram. From the winter solstice to the vernal equinox are ninety
days. _Of the vernal equinox_: This season increases phlegm in men, and
the sweetish humours in the blood, until the rising of the pleiades.
Use therefore juicy and acrid things, take labour, ... To the rising
of the pleiades are forty-six days. _Of the rising of the pleiades_:
This season increases the bitter bile and bitter humours in men, until
the summer solstice. Use therefore all sweet things, laxatives of the
belly.... To the summer solstice are forty-five days. _Of the summer
solstice_: This season increases the formation of black bile in men,
until the autumnal equinox. Use therefore cold water, and everything
that is fragrant.... To the autumnal equinox are ninety-three days. _Of
the autumnal equinox_: This season increases phlegm and thin rheums
in men until the setting of the pleiades. Use therefore remedies for
removing rheums, have recourse to acrid and succulent things, take no
vomits, and abstain from labour.... To the setting of the pleiades
are forty-five days. _Of the setting of the pleiades_: This season
increases phlegm in men until the winter solstice. Take therefore all
sour things, drink as much as is agreeable of a weak wine, use fat
things, and labour strenuously. To the winter solstice are forty-five
days.”[402]

PRAXAGORAS of Cos, who lived in the fourth century B.C., shortly after
Diocles, was a famous physician of the Dogmatic sect, who especially
excelled in anatomy and physiology. He placed the seat of all diseases
in the humours of the body, and was one of the chief supporters of
what is known as the “humoral pathology.” Sprengel[403] and others
state that he was the first who pointed out the distinction between
the arteries and the veins; but M. Littré denies this, and seems to
prove that the differences were known to Aristotle, Hippocrates, and
other writers.[404] His knowledge of anatomy must have been very
considerable, and his surgery was certainly bold; so that he even
ventured, in cases of intussusception of the bowel, to open the
abdomen in order to replace the intestine. In hernia he practised the
taxis,[405] _i.e._ replaced the bowel by the hand; and he amputated the
uvula in affections of that organ. He had many pupils, amongst others
Herophilus, Philotimus, and Plistonicus.

ARISTOTLE, the founder of comparative anatomy and the father of the
science of natural history, was the son of Nichomachus, physician to
Amyntas II., king of Macedonia. He was born at Stageira, B.C. 334.
His father was a scientific man of the race of the Asclepiads, and it
was the taste for such pursuits and the inherited bent of mind which
early inclined the son to the investigation of nature. He went to
Athens, where he became the disciple of Plato, and remained in his
society for twenty years. In his forty-second year he was summoned by
Philip of Macedon to undertake the tuition of Alexander the Great,
who was then fifteen years old. Of his philosophical works it is not
here necessary to speak; it is his scientific labours, which had so
important an influence on medical education, which chiefly concern
us. He wrote _Researches about Animals_, _On Sleep and Waking_, _On
Longevity and Shortlivedness_, _On Respiration_, _On Parts of Animals_,
_On Locomotion of Animals_, _On Generation of Animals_. Aristotle
inspired Alexander with a passion for the study of natural history,
and his royal pupil gave him abundant means and opportunity to collect
materials for a history of animals. The science of comparative anatomy,
so important in relation to that of medicine, was thus established. He
pointed out the differences which exist between the structure of men
and monkeys; described the organs of the elephant, and the stomach of
the ruminant animals. The anatomy of birds and the development of their
eggs during incubation were accurately described by him; he dissected
reptiles, and studied the habits of fishes. He investigated the action
of the muscles, regarded the heart as the origin of the blood-vessels,
named the _aorta_ and the _ventricles_, described the nerves which
he thought originated in the heart, but he confused the nerves with
the ligaments and tendons. The heart he considered as the centre of
movement and feeling[406] and nourishment, holding that it contains the
natural fire, and is the birthplace of the passions and the seat of the
soul; the brain he thought was merely a mass of water and earth, and
did not recognise it as nervous matter. The diaphragm he considered
had no other office than to separate the abdomen from the thorax and
protect the seat of the soul (the heart) from the impure influences
of the digestive organs. Superfœtation (or the conception of a second
embryo during the gestation of the first) he held to be possible, and
he first pointed out the _punctum saliens_.

THEOPHRASTUS, whose real name was Tyrtamus, was born at Eresa in the
island of Lesbos, 371 B.C., fourteen years after Aristotle. He was
the originator of the science of plants; he first learned the details
of their structure, the uses of their organs, the laws of their
reproduction,—in a word, the physiology of the vegetable world. When
Aristotle retired to Chalcis, he chose Theophrastus, to whom he gave
that name, signifying “a man of divine speech,” as his successor at
the Lyceum. This distinguished philosopher devoted himself alike to
the exact and speculative sciences. The greater part of his works
have perished; what is preserved to us consists of treatises on the
history of the vegetable kingdom, of stones, and some fragments of
works on physics, medicine, and some moral works. His _History of
Plants_ enumerates about five hundred different kinds, many of which
are now difficult to identify. He made some attempts at a vague kind
of classification, and has chapters on aquatic, kitchen, parasite,
succulent, oleaginous, and cereal plants. He carefully explains the
principles of the reproduction of vegetables, and the fecundation
of the female flowers by the pollen of the male. He recognises
hermaphrodite and unisexual flowers, and points out how the fecundation
of the latter is effected by the wind, insects, and by the water in the
case of aquatic plants. He knew that double flowers were sterile. He
devotes a chapter to the diseases of the vegetable kingdom; he almost
recognised the characteristics which distinguish the monocotyledonous
from the dicotyledonous plants. In a word, he laid the foundations on
which our modern botanists have erected their science.[407]


THE SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA.

“In the year 331 B.C.,” says Kingsley,[408] “one of the greatest
intellects whose influence the world has ever felt, saw, with his
eagle glance, the unrivalled advantages of the spot which is now
Alexandria; and conceived the mighty project of making it the point
of union of two, or rather of three worlds. In a new city, named
after himself, Europe, Asia, and Africa were to meet and to hold
communion.” When Greece lost her intellectual supremacy with her
national independence, the centre of literature, philosophy, and
science was shifted to this unique position. With all the treasures of
Egyptian wisdom around her, with all the stores of Eastern thought on
the one hand and those of Europe on the other, Alexandria became in
her schools the rallying-point of the world’s thought and activity. If
we turn to an atlas of ancient geography, we shall be struck with the
unrivalled facilities possessed by this city for gathering to itself
the treasures, intellectual and material, of the conquered world of
Alexander the Great. From the Danube, Greece, Phœnicia, Palestine,
Persia, Asia Minor, India, Italy, and the Celtic tribes, there came
embassies to Egypt to seek the protection and alliance of Alexander of
Macedon, and each must have contributed something to the greatness of
the city which he had founded. Just as every traveller in after years
who passed through the place was compelled to leave a copy of any work
which he had brought with him, to the Alexandrian library, so from the
first foundation of the town was every visitor a donor of some idea to
its stores of thought.

At the dismemberment of Alexander’s vast empire, after his death,
the Egyptian portion fell to the share of Ptolemy Soter. It was this
sovereign who founded the famous Alexandrian Library; a great patron of
the arts and sciences, he placed this institution under the direction
of Aristotle. He also established the Schools of Alexandria, and
encouraged the dissection of the human body.

CHRYSIPPUS, the Cnidian, who lived in the fourth century _B.C._, was
the father of the Chrysippus who was physician to Ptolemy Soter, and
he was tutor to Erasistratus. Pliny says that he reversed the practice
of preceding physicians in the most extraordinary manner. He would not
permit bleeding, because the blood contains the soul; did not practise
purging, though he sometimes permitted the use of enemata and emetics.
He wrote on herbs and their uses, and drove the blood out of limbs
previous to their amputation on the principles recently re-introduced
by Esmarch. He introduced the use of vapour baths in the treatment of
dropsy. As there were several physicians of the name of Chrysippus,
and as their works are lost, it is very difficult to distinguish their
maxims. Amongst the disciples of the Cnidian physician of this name
were MEDIUS, ARISTOGENES, METRODORUS, and ERASISTRATUS, as we have said.

HEROPHILUS, of Chalcedon in Bithynia, a pupil of CHRYSIPPUS of Cnidos
and PRAXAGORAS of Cos, was one of the most famous physicians of the
ancient world. He was a great anatomist and physiologist, and a
contemporary of the philosopher Diodorus Cronos, and of Ptolemy Soter
in the fourth and third centuries B.C. He settled at Alexandria, which
under Ptolemy I. became the most famous centre of the science of the
ancient Greeks. Here Herophilus founded with other physicians of the
city the great medical school which ultimately became distinguished
above all others, so that a sufficient guarantee of a physician’s
ability was the fact that he had received his education at Alexandria.
The foundation of the Alexandrian School formed a great epoch in
the history of medicine. The dissection of the human body was of
the utmost importance to the healing art. While the practice was
forbidden, it could only have been performed furtively and in a
hasty and unsatisfactory manner. The science of anatomy, on which
that of medicine to be anything but quackery must be founded, now
took its proper place in the education of the doctor. The bodies of
all malefactors were given over for the purposes of dissection.[409]
Herophilus is accused of having also dissected alive as many as
six hundred criminals. This fact has been denied by some of his
biographers, and others have attempted to explain it away; but it is
charged against him by Tertullian,[410] and Celsus mentions it[411] as
though it were a well-known fact, and without the least suspicion that
it was an unjust accusation.

Asked who is the best doctor, he is said to have replied, “He who knows
how to distinguish the possible from the impossible.”

In the course of his anatomical researches he made many discoveries
and gave to parts of the human body names which remain in common use
to this day. Dr. Baas thus sums up his anatomical and physiological
knowledge. He knew the nerves, that they had a capacity for sensation,
and were subject to the will, were derived from the brain, in which he
discovered the calamus scriptorius, the tela choroidea, the venous
sinuses, and torcular Herophili. He believed the fourth ventricle to
be the seat of the soul. He discovered the chyliferous and lactiferous
vessels. He described accurately the liver and Fallopian tubes, the
epididymis and the duodenum, to which he gave its name, and also the
os hyoides, the uvea, the vitreous humour, the retina, and the ciliary
processes. He called the pulmonary artery the vena arteriosa, and the
pulmonary vein the arteria venosa. He distinguished in respiration a
systole, a diastole, and a period of rest. He founded the doctrine of
the pulse, its rhythm, the bounding pulse and its varieties according
to age. The pulse is communicated by the heart to the walls of the
arteries. He distinguished between arteries and veins, and admitted
that the arteries contain blood. He taught that diseases are caused
by a corruption of the humours. Paralysis is due to a lack of nerve
influence. He laid great stress upon diet, bled frequently, and
practised ligation of the limbs to arrest bleeding. He was the first to
administer cooking salt as a medicine. A good botanist, he preferred
vegetable remedies, which he termed the “Hands of the gods.” He
possessed considerable acquaintance with obstetric operations,[412] and
wrote a text-book of midwifery.[413]

ERASISTRATUS, of Iulis in the island of Cos, a pupil of CHRYSIPPUS was
one of the most famous physicians and anatomists of the Alexandrian
school. Plutarch says that when he was physician to King Seleucus,
he discovered that the young prince Antiochus had fallen in love
with his step-mother Stratonice by finding no physical cause for the
illness from which he was suffering, and that his heart palpitated,
he trembled, blushed, and perspired when the lady entered the room.
By adroit management he induced the king to confer on the prince the
object of the young man’s passion. _Similia similibus curantur._ So
successful was the treatment that the physician received a fee of 100
talents, which supposing the Attic standard to be meant would amount to
£24,375, perhaps the largest medical fee on record.[414] He lived for
some time in Alexandria, and gave up medical practice in his old age,
that he might devote his whole time to the study of anatomy.

Dr. Baas, in his account of the Anatomy, Physiology, and Medicine of
Erasistratus, says that he divided the nerves into those of sensation
and those of motion. The brain substance is the origin of the motor and
the brain membranes that of the sensory nerves.[415] Like Herophilus,
he confounded the nerves and ligaments. He described accurately the
structure, convolutions, and ventricles of the brain. He thought that
the convolutions, especially those of the cerebellum, are the seat of
thought, and located mental diseases in the brain. He knew the lymph
and chyle vessels, and the chordæ tendineæ of the heart. He assumed
the anastomoses of the arteries and veins. The pneuma in the heart is
vital spirits, in the brain is animal spirits. Digestion is due to
the friction of the walls of the stomach. He thought that the bile is
useless, as is the spleen and other viscera. He shows some acquaintance
with pathological anatomy, as he describes induration of the liver in
dropsy. His idea of the cause of disease is plethora and aberration of
the humours. Inflammation is due to the detention of the blood in the
small vessels by the pneuma driven from the heart into the arteries;
fever occurs when the pneuma is crowded back to the heart by the venous
blood, and blood gets into the large arteries. Dropsy always proceeds
from the liver. He discarded bleeding and purgation; recommended
baths, enemeta, emetics, friction, and cupping. He was, thinks Dr.
Baas, a forerunner of Hahnemann in the doctrine of small doses, as
he prescribed three drops of wine in bilious diarrhœa. He opened the
abdomen to apply remedies directly to the affected part, and invented a
kind of catheter.[416]

Erasistratus was the first to describe a species of hunger, to which
he gave the name Boulimia—a desire for food which cannot be satisfied.
In his account of the complaint he mentions the Scythians, who, when
obliged to fast, tie bandages round their abdomens tightly, and this
stays their hunger.[417]

The ancient apologists for the human vivisections of Herophilus and
Erasistratus used to say that these anatomists were thus “enabled to
behold, during life, those parts which nature had concealed, and to
contemplate their situation, colour, figure, size, order, hardness
or softness, roughness or smoothness, etc. They added that it is not
possible, when a person has any internal illness, to know what is the
cause of it, unless one is exactly acquainted with the situation of
all the viscera; nor can one heal any part without understanding its
nature: that when the intestines protrude through a wound, a person
who does not know what is their colour when in a healthy state cannot
distinguish the sound from the diseased parts, nor therefore apply
proper remedies; while, on the contrary, he who is acquainted with
the natural state of the diseased parts will undertake the cure with
confidence and certainty; and that, in short, it is not to be called an
act of cruelty, as some persons suppose it, to seek for the remedies
of an immense number of _innocent_ persons in the sufferings of a few
_criminals_.”[418]

AMMONIUS OF ALEXANDRIA, surnamed LITHOTOMUS, probably lived in the
reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus (B.C. 283-247). He is celebrated as
having been the first surgeon who thought of crushing a stone within
the bladder when too large for extraction entire; for this reason he
was called λιθοτόμος. Celsus describes his method.[419]

Of the Herophilists we may mention DEMETRIUS OF APAMÆA (B.C. 276), who
named and described diabetes, and was distinguished as an obstetrician.

MANTIAS, who, B.C. 250, first collected the preparations of medicines
into a special book.

DEMOSTHENES PHILALETHES, who, under Nero, was the most celebrated
oculist of his time, wrote a work on diseases of the eye, which was the
standard authority until about A.D. 1000. The work has perished, but
Ætius and Paulus Ægineta have preserved some fragments of it. He wrote
also on the pulse.

HEGETON was a surgeon of Alexandria who was mentioned by Galen as
having lived there as a contemporary of several physicians who were
known to have resided in that city at the end of the second or the
beginning of the first century B.C. He was a follower of Herophilus,
and wrote a book on the causes of diseases entitled Περὶ Αἰτιῶν, which
has perished.

Of the school of Erasistratus we may mention XENOPHON OF COS, who
wrote a work on the names of the parts of the human body, and on
botany and the diseases of women. NICIAS OF MILETUS, a friend of the
poet Theocritus; PHILOXENOS, who, according to Celsus, wrote several
valuable books on surgery; and MARTIALIS the Anatomist, who visited
Rome about A.D. 165. He knew Galen, and wrote works on anatomy which
were in great repute long after his death.

The followers of Herophilus and Erasistratus, though they founded
schools, did not greatly influence the art of medicine, nor did they
contribute much to its advancement beyond the point in which it was
left by their great masters. They fell into fruitless speculations
instead of pursuing their science by accumulating facts; in the words
of Pliny, it was easier “to sit and listen quietly in the schools,
than to be up and wandering over deserts, and to seek out new plants
every day.”[420] So Dogmatism fell into disrepute and made way for the
advent of Empiricism.


SCHOOL OF THE EMPIRICS.

The School of the Empirics was the outcome of the system of Scepticism,
introduced by Pyrrho and extended by Carneades, who taught that there
is no certainty about anything, no true knowledge of phenomena, and
that probability alone can be our guide. Ænesidemus carried this
scepticism into the medicine of the Empirics, but the school was
originally established under the title of the Teretics or Mnemoneutics.
The Empirics rested their system on what was called the “Empiric
tripod,”—that is, accident, history, and analogy. Remedies have come
to us by chance, by the remembrance of previous cures, and by applying
them to similar cases.

The sect of the EMPIRICISTS was founded by Serapion of Alexandria and
Philinus of Cos in the third century B.C. They were in opposition
to the Dogmatists, professing to derive their knowledge only from
experience; they held that the whole art of medicine consisted in
observation, experiment, and the application of known remedies which
have constantly proved valuable in the treatment of one class of
diseases to other and presumably similar classes. Celsus,[421] in
his account of the principles of this sect, says that “they admit
that the evident causes are necessary, but deprecate inquiry into
them because nature is incomprehensible. This is proved because the
philosophers and physicians who have spent so much labour in trying
to search out these occult causes cannot agree amongst themselves. If
reasoning could make physicians, the philosophers should be the most
successful practitioners, as they have such abundance of words. If
the causes of diseases were the same in all places, the same remedies
ought to be used everywhere. Relief from sickness is to be sought
from things certain and tried, that is from experience, which guides
us in all other arts. Husbandmen and pilots do not reason about their
business, but they practise it. Disquisitions can have no connection
with medicine, because physicians whose opinions have been directly
opposed to one another have equally restored their patients to health;
they did not derive their methods of cure from studying the occult
causes about which they disputed, but from the experience they had of
the remedies which they employed upon their patients. Medicine was not
first discovered in consequence of reasoning, but the theory was sought
for after the discovery of medicine. Does reason, they ask, prescribe
the same as experience, or something different? If the same, it must be
needless; if different, it must be mischievous.

“But what remains is also cruel, to cut open the abdomen and præcordia
of living men, and make that art, which presides over the health of
mankind, the instrument, not only of inflicting death, but of doing
it in the most horrid manner; especially if it be considered that
some of those things which are sought after with so much barbarity
cannot be known at all, and others may be known without any cruelty:
for that the colour, smoothness, softness, hardness, and such like,
are not the same in a wounded body as they were in a sound one; and
further, because these qualities, even in bodies that have suffered
no external violence, are often changed by fear, grief, hunger,
indigestion, fatigue, and a thousand other inconsiderable disorders,
which makes it much more probable that the internal parts, which are
far more tender, and never exposed to the light itself, are changed
by the severest wounds and mangling. And that nothing can be more
ridiculous than to imagine anything to be the same in a dying man, nay,
one already dead, as it is in a living person; for that the abdomen
may indeed be opened while a man breathes, but as soon as the knife
has reached the præcordia, and the transverse septum is cut, which
by a kind of membrane divides the upper from the lower parts (and by
the Greeks is called the diaphragm), the man immediately expires; and
then the præcordia, and all the viscera, never come to the view of the
butchering physician till the man is dead; and they must necessarily
appear as such of a dead person, and not as they were while he lived;
and thus the physician gains only the opportunity of murdering a man
cruelly, and not of observing what are the appearances of the viscera
in a living person. If, however, there can be anything which can be
observed in a person which yet breathes, chance often throws it in the
way of such as practise the healing art; for that sometimes a gladiator
on the stage, a soldier in the field, or a traveller beset by robbers,
is so wounded that some internal part, different in different people,
may be exposed to view; and thus a prudent physician finds their
situation, position, order, figure, and the other particulars he wants
to know, not by perpetrating murder, but by attempting to give health;
and learns by compassion that which others had discovered by horrid
cruelty. That for these reasons it is not necessary to lacerate even
dead bodies; which, though not cruel, yet may be shocking to the sight;
since most things are different in dead bodies; and even the dressing
of wounds shows all that can be discovered in the living” (Futvoye’s
Translation).[422]

PHILINUS OF COS, the reputed founder of the school, was a pupil of
Herophilus, and lived in the third century B.C. He declared that all
the anatomy his vivisecting master had taught him had not helped him
in the least in the cure of his patients. He has been compared with
Hahnemann.

SERAPION OF ALEXANDRIA was also of the third century B.C. He must
not be confounded with the Arabian physician of this name. He wrote
against Hippocrates. He discarded all hypotheses. He was the first to
prescribe sulphur in chronic skin diseases; and he used some singular
and disgusting remedies in his treatment. One of these was crocodiles’
dung, which in consequence became scarce and costly. GLAUCIAS, who
invented the “Empiric Tripod,” ZEUXIS and HERACLIDES of Tarentum, lived
about this period. The latter wrote commentaries on Hippocrates, and
used opium to procure sleep. He mentions strangulated hernia in one of
his treatises.

Many commentaries were written about this time on Hippocrates;
and the art of pharmacy, especially the preparation of poisons,
was much studied in the second century B.C. Botanic gardens were
established, and men began to experiment with antidotes for poisons.
“Mithridaticum,” so called after MITHRIDATES THE GREAT OF PONTUS, was
a famous antidote which was used even to recent times. NICANDER OF
COLOPHON wrote poems on poisons, and antidotes, leeches, and emetics
for the first time appeared in poetry, and the symptoms of opium and
lead-poisoning were not beneath the attention of the muse. ATTALUS
III., king of Pergamos, was in constant fear of being poisoned, says
Plutarch,[423] amused himself with planting poisonous herbs, not
only henbane and hellebore, but hemlock, aconite, and dorycnium. He
cultivated these in the royal gardens, gathered them at the proper
seasons, and studied their properties and the qualities of their juices
and fruits.

Cleopatra is said by Baas[424] to have written a work on the diseases
of parturient and lying-in women, etc. She paid special attention, it
would seem, to maladies of a specific character.

Le Clerc gives a list of the women who have exercised the profession of
medicine in ancient times.[425]

CLEOPATRA treated the diseases of women. ARTEMISIA, Queen of Caria,
ISIS, CYBELE, LATONA, DIANA, PALLAS, ANGITA, MEDEA, CIRCE, POLYDAMNA,
AGAMEDA, HELEN, ŒNONE, HIPPO, OCRYOE, EPIONE, ERIOPIS, HYGEIA, ÆGLE,
PANACEA, JASO, ROME, and ACESO are the ladies of classic story who had
more or less acquaintance with medicine for good or evil purposes. That
women, subject to many disorders for which in any state of society
their natural modesty would make it difficult for them to consult men,
should become proficient in the treatment of complaints which are
peculiar to their sex, is the most natural thing in the world, and it
is probable that very much of our knowledge of the treatment of these
cases may be due to feminine wisdom. An ancient law of the Athenians
forbade women and slaves to exercise the art of medicine, so that
even midwifery, which they considered a branch of it, could only be
practised by men. Some Athenian ladies preferred to die rather than be
attended by men in their confinements. Women acted as accoucheuses in
Egypt, Greece, and Rome, and some of them in classic times wrote books
on medicine. Ætius gives some fragments in his works from a doctress
named ASPASIA.

Although the Greek physicians did not know anything of the circulation
of the blood as we understand it, they were not wholly ignorant of the
phenomena of the vascular system.

The arteries were so called by the ancients because they thought they
contained air, as they were always found empty after death. Hippocrates
and his contemporaries called the trachea an artery. Some of the
ancient anatomists, however, knew that they contain blood, and they
knew that when an artery is divided it is more dangerous and entails
a longer recovery than the division of a vein. They knew also of the
pulsation in the arteries which does not exist in the veins, and they
were fully aware of the importance of this fact in its relation to
diagnosis and treatment.

“The ancients chiefly regarded the odd days, and called them critical
(κρισίμοι), as if on these a judgment was to be formed concerning the
patient. These days were the third, fifth, seventh, ninth, eleventh,
fourteenth, and twenty-first; so that the greatest influence was
attributed to the seventh, next to the fourteenth, and then to the
twenty-first. And therefore, with regard to the nourishment of the
sick, they waited for the fits of the odd days; then afterwards they
gave food, expecting the approaching fits to be easier; insomuch that
Hippocrates, if the fever had ceased on any other day, used to be
apprehensive of a relapse.”[426]

These critical days were believed by Hippocrates and most of the other
ancient physicians to be influenced by the moon.

Greek medicine was divided into five parts, and to this day these
divisions are still maintained. They were (1) Physiology and Anatomy
considered together; (2) Ætiology, or the doctrine of the causes of
disease; (3) Pathology; (4) Hygiene, or the art of preserving the
health; (5) Semeiology, or the knowledge of the symptoms of disease and
diagnosis, and Therapeutics, or the art of curing diseases.

As to the contending claims of the various Greek schools of medicine,
Dr. Adams says,—

“There is no legitimate mode of cultivating medical knowledge which was
not followed by some one or other of the three great sects into which
the profession was divided in ancient times.”[427]

With respect to the professional income of Greek physicians, Herodotus
states[428] that the Æginetans, about 532 B.C., paid Democedes one
talent a year from the public treasury for his services, _i.e._ about
£344. From the Athenians he afterwards received a sum amounting to
about £406 per annum. When he removed to Samos, Polycrates paid him a
salary of two talents, or £487 10_s._ A difficulty arises, however, as
to this statement of Herodotus, and there may have been an error in the
sums mentioned.[429]

The procuring of abortion was not in ancient Greece always considered
a very great crime, and amongst the Romans it seems to have been
unnoticed originally. It is related by Cicero that he knew of a case in
Asia where a woman was put to death for having procured the abortion
of her own child. Under the emperors, the punishment was exile or
condemnation to the mines.


THE SCYTHIANS.

Of medicine as practised amongst the Scythians, little is known.

Herodotus says[430] that when the king of the Scythians was sick he
sent for three soothsayers, who proceeded to discover by divination the
cause of his majesty’s malady. The prophets generally said that such or
such a citizen had sworn falsely by the royal hearth, mentioning the
name of the citizen against whom they brought the charge. The accused,
having been arrested, was charged with causing the king’s illness.
When he denied it, the king sent for twice as many more prophets; if
these confirmed the charge, the offender was promptly executed; if
they failed to do so, the first prophets were put to death. Abaris,
the Hyperborean priest of Apollo, cured diseases by incantations, and
delivered the world from a plague, according to Suidas. Anarcharsis,
the Scythian philosopher, flourished 592 B.C.; if he knew anything
of medicine, as has been said, he was probably acquainted with such
knowledge of the art as was possessed by the Greeks.

The ancient physicians seemed to have had no idea of the necessity for
observing any order in their interpretation of diseases; even in the
middle ages, says Sprengel,[431] they merely followed the position of
the parts of the body, “passing from the head to the chest, from the
thorax to the abdomen, and from the belly to the extremities.”

In that branch of modern medical science which treats of the
classification of diseases, and which is termed Nosology, a systematic
arrangement is followed, and the prominent symptoms are taken as the
basis of that classification.


GREEK MEDICAL LITERATURE.

The following is Dr. Greenhill’s probably complete list of the ancient
treatises on Therapeutics now extant.[432]

Hippocrates: Seven Books (see p. 178 of this work). Aretæus,
Περὶ Θεραπείας Ὀξέων καὶ Χρονίων Παθῶν, _De Curatione Acutorum
et Diuturnorum Morborum_, in four books. Galen, Τέχνη Ἰατρική,
_Ars Medica_; Id. Θεραπευτικὴ Μέθοδος, _Methodus Medendi_; Id.
Τὰ πρὸς Γλαύκωνα Θεραπευτικά, _Ad Glauconem de Medendi Methodo_;
Id. Περὶ Φλεβοτομίας πρὸς Ἐρασίστρατον, _De Venæsectione adversus
Erasistratum_; Id. Περὶ Φλεβοτομίας πρὸς Ἐρασιστρατείους τοὺς ἐν
Ῥώμη, _De Venæsectione adversus Erasistrateos Romæ Degentes_; Id.
Περὶ Φλεβοτομίας Θεραπευτικὸυ Βιβλίον, _De Curandi Ratione per
Venæsectionem_; Id. Περὶ Βδελλῶν, Ἀντισπασέως, Σικύας, καὶ Ἐγχαράξεως,
καὶ Καταχασμοῦ, _De Hirudinibus, Revulsione, Cucurbitula, Incisione, et
Scarificatione_. Alexander Aphrodisiensis, Περὶ Πυρετῶν, _De Febribus_.
Great part of the Σύναγωγαὶ  Ἰατρικαί, _Collecta Medicinalia_, of
Oribasius, and also of his Σύνοψις, _Synopsis ad Eustathium_, treat of
this subject. Palladius, Περὶ Πυρετῶν Σύντομος Σύνοψις, _De Febribus
Concisa Synopsis_. Ætius, Βιβλία Ἰατρικὰ Ἐκκαίδεκα, _Libri Medicinales
Sedecim_. Alexander Trallianus, Βιβλία Ἰατρικὰ Δυοκαίδεκα, _Libri
de Re Medica Duodecim_. Paulus Ægineta, Ἐπιτομῆς Ἰατρικῆς Βιβλία
Ἕπτα, _Compendii Medici Libri Septem_, of which great part relates
to this subject. Theophanes Nonnus, Ἐπιτομὴ τῆς Ἰατρικῆς Ἀπάσης
Τέχνης, _Compendium Totius Artis Mediciæ_. Synesius, Περὶ Πυρετῶν,
_De Febribus_. Joannes Actuarius, _Methodus Medendi_. Demetrius
Pepagomenus, Περὶ Ποδάγρας, _De Podagra_. Celsus, _De Medicina_, in
eight books. Cælius Aurelianus, _Celerum Passionum_, Libri iii. Id.
_Tardarum Passionum_, Libri v. Serenus Samonicus, _De Medicina Præcepta
Saluberrima_, a poem on the art of Healing. Theodorus Priscianus,
_Rerum Medicarum_, Libri iv.

[Illustration: EXAMPLES OF ANCIENT SURGERY.

Fig. 1.

Representation of the mode of reducing dislocation of the thigh
outwards, as given by M. Littré.

Fig. 2.

Representation of the ancient mode of performing succussion, as given
by Vidus Vidius in the Venetian edition of Galen’s works (_Cl._ vi., p.
271).
                                                        [_Face p._ 204.]




CHAPTER IV.

THE EARLIER ROMAN MEDICINE.

 Disease-Goddesses.—School of the Methodists.—Rufus and
 Marinus.—Pliny.—Celsus.


How medical instruction was first given to the Romans cannot be
ascertained with certainty; the want of it must have frequently been
forced upon the attention of the authorities. It was the practice
of the soldiers to dress each other’s wounds; they carried bandages
with them for this purpose; but their surgery must have been very
indifferent, for Livy tells us that, after the battle of Sutrium (B.C.
309), more soldiers were lost by dying of their wounds than were killed
by the enemy.

As the Etruscans were famous for their knowledge of philosophy and
medicine, the Romans probably acquired something of these sciences from
this ancient people; but that they were more apt at learning their
superstitions than their arts of healing, we have proof enough. Whether
the Romans were more indebted to the Etruscans or to the Sabine people
for their religion is a question which has been discussed. It would
seem that Numa Pompilius, the legendary king of Rome, was of Sabine
origin, and that he possessed some acquaintance with physical science
and philosophy. He dissuaded the Romans from idolatry. Livy’s account
of his experiments, in consequence of which he was struck by lightning,
has been considered by some writers as evidence that he was acquainted
with electricity.[433]

How intellectually inferior the ancient Romans were in comparison
with the Greeks, may be learned from the fact that Pliny tells us
that “The Roman people for more than 600 years were not, indeed,
without medical art, but they were without physicians.” Such mental
culture as the Romans possessed was imported from Greece, and until
the Greeks instructed them in medicine they possessed nothing but a
theurgic system of treating disease by prayers, charms, prescriptions
from the Sibylline books, and the rude surgery and domestic medicine
of the barbarians. Guilty of degrading superstitions unknown to the
Greeks, the list of their gods and goddesses of disease reads like the
accounts of the healing art from some savage nation. Fever and stench
were worshipped as the goddesses Febris and Mephitis; Fessonia helped
the weary, says St. Augustine,[434] and “sweet Cloacina” was invoked
when the drains were out of order.[435]

The itch patients invoked the goddess Scabies and the plague-stricken
the goddess Angeronia; women sought the aid of Fluonia and Uterina,
and Ossipaga was goddess of the navel and bones of children. There
were many goddesses of midwifery; Carna presided over the abdominal
viscera, and sacrifices of beans and bacon were offered to her. St.
Augustine pours his satire and contempt on the women’s goddesses in
the eleventh chapter of the book from which we have quoted. The Romans
were cosmopolitan in the way of divinities; Isis and Serapis were
imported from Egypt, the Cabiri from the Phœnicians, and the worship of
Æsculapius was commenced by the Romans, B.C. 294.[436]

Certain facts in the history of the Romans prove that there was a
profession of medicine in Rome even in very early times. Plutarch,
in his _Life of Cato the Censor_, speaks of a Roman ambassador who
was sent to the king of Bithynia, and who had his skull trepanned. By
the Lex Aquilia a doctor who neglected a slave after an operation was
responsible if he died in consequence, and in the Twelve Tables of Numa
mention is made of dental operations.

A college of Æsculapius and of Health was established in Rome 154 B.C.
An inscription has been discovered in the excavations of the Palatine
which has preserved the memorial of its foundation.[437] The medical
profession of ancient Rome was quite free, and such instruction as
its followers considered it necessary to acquire could be obtained
how and where they chose. There was no uniform system of education;
the training was private in early times, and was imparted by such
physicians as cared to take pupils for a certain specified honorarium.
It was not till later times that the Archiatri in their colleges, which
were somewhat on the model of the mediæval guilds, took pupils for
instruction in medicine and surgery. Pure medical schools did not exist
amongst the Romans.[438] Pliny complained[439] “that people believed
in any one who gave himself out for a doctor, even if the falsehood
directly entailed the greatest danger.” “Unfortunately there is no law
which punishes doctors for ignorance, and no one takes revenge on a
doctor if, through his fault, some one dies. It is permitted him by our
danger to learn for the future, at our death to make experiments, and,
without having to fear punishment, to set at naught the life of a human
being.”

Cato hated physicians, partly because they were mostly Greeks, and,
partly because he was himself an outrageous quack, who thought himself
equal to a whole college of physicians. Plutarch tells us[440] that
he had heard of the answer which Hippocrates gave the king of Persia,
when he sent for him and offered him a reward of many talents: “I will
never make use of my art in favour of barbarians who are enemies of
the Greeks.” He affected to believe that all Greek physicians took a
similar oath, and therefore advised his son to have nothing to do with
them. But there is no doubt his objection to the faculty arose from the
fact that he had “himself written a little treatise in which he had set
down his method of cure.” Cato’s guide to domestic medicine was good
enough for the Roman people; what did they want with Greek physicians?
His system of diet, according to Plutarch, was peculiar for sick
persons; he did not approve of fasting, he permitted his patients to
eat ducks, geese, pigeons, hares, etc., because they are a light diet
suitable for sick people. Plutarch adds, that he was not in his own
household a very successful practitioner, as he lost his wife and son.
Pliny[441] tells us all about Cato’s book of recipes, which the Roman
father of a family consulted when any of his family or domestic animals
were ill. The family doctor of those days was the father or the master
of the household, and no doubt Cato was a very generous, if not a very
skilful practitioner. Seneca sums up the healing art of the time thus:
“Medicina quondam paucarum fuit scientia herbarum quibus sisteretur
fluens sanguis, vulnera coirent.”[442]

Cato attempted to cure dislocations by magic songs (carmina): “Huat,
hanat, ista, pista sista damniato damnaustra,” or nonsense simply. What
his success in the treatment of luxations on this principle we are not
informed. The practice of medicine and surgery before the time of Cæsar
was not an honourable one in Rome. This may possibly have arisen from
the fact that the only professors of the art were Greeks, who for the
most part left their country for their country’s good and went to Rome
merely to make money, honestly if possible—perhaps—but at all events
to make it. Rome offered greater facilities for doing this than their
native land, and the process was doubtless very similar to that with
which our own colonies and the United States of America have in the
past been only too familiar.[443]

During the severe epidemics which often raged in ancient Rome the
oracles were consulted as to the means to be adopted to be rid of
them; prayers were offered up to the Greek gods of healing as well as
those of the state. But Greece had done more for the art of healing
by her physicians than her gods could do, and in process of time
the Romans found this out, and the native doctors were compelled to
yield before the advance of Greek science. The works of the Greek
physicians and surgeons, who had done so much for medical knowledge and
advancement, gradually made their way amongst the Romans. These paved
the way for Hellenic influence, in spite of the disreputable behaviour
of some of the professors of the art of medicine, on whom the Romans
with good excuse looked as quacks and foreigners whose only object was
gain. We read of the erection at Rome of a temple in honour of Apollo
the healer, 467 B.C., and of the building of a temple to Æsculapius of
Epidaurus, 460 B.C. Ten years later the Romans built a temple to the
goddess _Salus_ when the pestilence raged in their city. Lucina was
first worshipped there 400 B.C. In 399 B.C. the first _lectisternium_,
a festival of Greek origin, was held in Rome by order of the Sybilline
books; it was held on exceptional occasions, the present being a time
of fresh public distress on account of a pestilence which was raging.
The images of the gods were laid on a couch; a table spread with a meal
was placed before them, and solemn prayers and sacrifices were offered.
A third _lectisternium_ was held at Rome 362 B.C. That he might
obtain a cessation of the pestilence then raging in Rome, L. Manlius
Imperiorus fixed a nail in the temple of Jupiter, B.C. 360. This
holding of lectisternes and driving nails in the temple walls became
the recognised method of dealing with such scourges, and painfully
exhibits the powerlessness of mankind to deal with disease by theurgic
means. Science alone can combat disease, the bed and board offered to
the gods who cannot use them are now bestowed on health officers who
can; we no longer drive nails in temple walls to remind deities that
we are in trouble, but we send memorials to our colleges of physicians
demanding suggestions for escaping a visitation of cholera; it is
not sufficient to fix “a nail in a sure place,” it must be fixed in
the right one. In the year 291 B.C., on the occasion of a pestilence
in Rome, ten ambassadors were sent to Epidaurus to seek aid from the
temple of Æsculapius. The god was sent to the afflicted city under the
figure of a serpent. He comes to our towns now under the figure of a
cask of carbolic acid.

ARCHAGATHUS was the first person who regularly practised medicine in
Rome. He was a Peloponnesian who settled in the city B.C. 219, and
was welcomed with great respect by the authorities, who purchased a
surgery or shop for him at the public expense, and gave him the “Jus
Quiritium.”

As he treated his patients chiefly with the knife and powerful
caustics, his severe remedies gave great offence to the people and
brought the profession of surgery into contempt. He was called a
“butcher,” and had to leave the city.[444]

ALEXANDER SEVERUS (225-235 A.D.) was the first who established public
lecture rooms for teachers of medicine and granted stipends to them.
In return they were compelled to teach poor state-supported students
gratuitously. Constantine demanded like services from the doctors in
return for certain immunities.[445]

There was no regular curriculum, nor period of studentship; everything
depended upon the ability and industry of the individual pupil.
Clinical instruction was given by the teachers, as Martial tells in a
satirical verse:—

    “Faint was I only, Symmachus, till thou,
    Backed by an hundred students, throng’dst my bed;
    An hundred icy fingers chilled my brow:
    I had no fever; now I’m nearly dead!”

                                               (Dr. Handerson’s Trans.)

Anatomy had been pretty thoroughly taught in the Roman Empire. RUFUS
OF EPHESUS, who lived probably in the reign of Trajan, A.D. 98-117,
was a very famous anatomist. He considered the spleen to be absolutely
useless: a belief which lasted to quite modern times. The nerves we
call recurrent were probably then only recently discovered. He proved
that the nerves proceed from the brain, and divided them into those of
sensation and those of motion. He considered the heart to be the seat
of life, and remarked that the left ventricle is smaller and thicker
than the right. He discovered the crossing (decussation) of the optic
nerves, and made several important researches in the anatomy of the
eye. He wrote on diseases of the mind, and discussed medicines in
poetry.

MARINUS, a celebrated physician and anatomist, lived in the first or
second century of our era. He wrote many anatomical treatises, which
Galen greatly praised, and he commented upon Hippocrates. He knew the
seven cranial nerves, and discovered the inferior laryngeal nerve and
the glands of the intestines.

QUINTUS, Galen’s tutor, was one of his pupils. LYCUS was a pupil of
Quintus, who wrote anatomical books of some reputation. PELOPS was
also one of Galen’s earliest tutors, and was a famous anatomist and
physician at Smyrna. ÆSCHRYON, a native of Pergamos was another of
Galen’s tutors, and had a great knowledge of pharmacy and materia
medica. He was the father of all those who invent superstitious
remedies for the bite of a mad dog by means of cruelty. For this he
directs crawfish to be caught at a time when the sun and moon were in
a particular position, and to be baked alive. A worthy combination, it
will be perceived, of superstition, astrology, and purposeless cruelty.

Although anybody might practise medicine in Rome without let or
hindrance, the Lex Cornelia ordered the arrest of the doctor if the
patient died through his negligence (88 B.C.).

There was a public sanitary service and other Government employments
which demanded properly instructed doctors in ancient Rome, and the
practice of specialism in the treatment of disease was carried to even
greater lengths than at present. Martial satirises this.[446]

In the time of Strabo and in that of Trajan there were public medical
officers in Gaul, Asia Minor, and in Latium. In Rome there were
district medical officers for every part of the city. They were
permitted to engage in private practice, but were compelled to attend
the poor gratuitously. Their salary, according to Puschmann,[447] was
paid chiefly in articles of natural produce.

The _archiatri populares_ were the district physicians. The court
physicians were called _archiatri palatini_. The _archiatri
municipales_ were municipal physicians. Their guild was the COLLEGIUM
ARCHIATRORUM, which in constitution was not unlike our Royal College of
Physicians.

Different societies employed doctors; the theatres, gladiators, and the
circus retained surgeons.

The art of ophthalmic surgery first became a separate branch of the
medical profession in the city of Alexandria. Celsus states that
PHILOXENUS, who lived two hundred and seventy years before Christ, was
the most celebrated of the Alexandrian oculists.[448]

Oculists were a numerous but ignorant class of practitioners in
ancient Rome; their treatment was almost always by salves, each
eye-doctor having his own specialty. Nearly two hundred seals with
the proprietors’ names have been discovered which have been attached
to the pots containing the ointments. Galen speaks contemptuously of
the science of the eye-doctors of his time. Martial satirises them.
“Now you are a gladiator who once were an ophthalmist; you did as a
doctor what you do as a gladiator.” In another epigram he says, “The
blear-eyed Hylas would have paid you sixpence, O Quintus; one eye is
gone, he will still pay threepence; make haste and take it, brief is
your chance, when he is blind he will pay you nothing.” Under Nero,
DEMOSTHENES PHILALETHES, the famous doctor of Marseilles, was a
celebrated oculist, whose work on eye diseases was the chief authority
on the subject until about A.D. 1000. Paulus Ægineta, in his treatise
on Ophthalmology, recommends crocodile’s dung in opacity of the cornea,
and bed-bugs’ and frogs’ blood in trichiasis; yet with all this
absurdity he distinguished between cataract and amaurosis.

The ophthalmological literature of the Greeks and Romans has for the
most part perished. Puschmann says that this branch of surgery must
have been able to show remarkable results. “Not only trichiasis,
hypopyon, leucoma, lachrymal fistula, and other affections of the
external parts of the eye were subjected to operative treatment, but
even cataract itself.”[449]

Although the surgeons of the time were ignorant of the true nature of
some of the diseases which they treated, they could cure them. Cataract
was treated by “couching,” or depressing the diseased lens by means of
a needle, in order to extract it.[450]

A patient would sometimes require a consultation, when several doctors
would meet and discuss his case, with much difference of opinion
more or less violently expressed. Regardless of the sufferings of
the patient, they wrangled over his symptoms, and behaved as if they
were engaged in a pugilistic encounter, each man far more anxious to
exhibit his parts and display his dialectical skill than to alleviate
the sufferings of the unfortunate client. Pliny, Galen, and Theodorus
Priscianus have left realistic descriptions of these medical encounters.

With respect to the professional income of the early Roman physicians,
Pliny says[451] that Albutius, Arruntius, Calpetanus, Cassius, and
Rubrius gained 250,000 sesterces per annum, equal to £1,953 2_s._
6_d._; that Quintus Stertinius made it a favour that he was content to
receive from the emperor 500,000 sesterces per annum, or £3,906 5_s._,
as he might have made 600,000 sesterces, or £4,687 10_s._, by his
private practice. He and his brother, also an Imperial physician, left
between them at their death the sum of thirty millions of sesterces, or
£234,375, notwithstanding the large sums they had spent on beautifying
Naples.[452] Galen’s fee for curing the wife of the consul Boethus,
after a long illness, was about equal to £400 of our money.

Manlius Cornutus, according to Pliny, paid his doctor a sum amounting
to £2,000 for curing him of a skin disease; and the doctors Crinas and
Alcon, according to the same authority, were immensely rich men. But
these were all exceptional cases, and there is no reason to suppose
that Roman doctors made on the average more than sufficient to keep
them decently.[453]


SCHOOL OF THE METHODISTS.

ASCLEPIADES, of Prusa, in Bithynia, was a physician of great celebrity
and influence, who flourished at Rome in the beginning of the first
century B.C. He passed his earlier years at Alexandria, then went to
Athens, where he studied rhetoric and medicine. He is said to have
travelled much. He ultimately settled at Rome as a rhetorician. He was
the friend of Cicero. Being unsuccessful as a teacher of rhetoric, he
devoted himself to medicine. He was a man of great natural ability,
but he was quite ignorant of anatomy and physiology; so he decried the
labours of those who studied these sciences, and violently attacked
Hippocrates. His conduct was that of an early Paracelsus. He had many
pupils, and the school they founded was afterwards called that of the
Methodists. His system was original, though it owed somewhat to the
Epicurean philosophy. He conceived the idea that disease arose in the
atoms and corpuscles composing the body, by a want of harmony in their
motion. Harmony was health; discord, disease. Naturally his treatment
was as pleasant as that of the most fashionable modern physician. He
paid great attention to diet, passive motions, frictions after the
method now called massage, and the use of cold sponging. He entirely
rejected the humoral pathology of Hippocrates, and totally denied his
doctrine of crises, declared that the physician alone cures, nature
merely supplying the opportunities. His famous motto was that the
physician should cure “tuto, celeriter, ac jucunde.” In the beginning
of fevers he refused his patients permission even to rinse the mouth.
He originated the method of cyclical cures by adopting certain methods
of treatment at definite periods. He first applied the term “phrenitis”
in the sense of mental disturbance. In drugs he was a sceptic, but he
allowed a liberal use of wine. He was said to have experimented in
physiology, though he knew nothing of it. Tertullian ridicules him
thus: “Asclepiades may investigate goats, which bleat without a heart,
and drive away flies, which fly without a head.”

Asclepiades must have been a great deal more than a charlatan, for
many of his fundamental ideas have persisted even to the present time.
He was the first to distinguish diseases into acute and chronic.[454]
Acute diseases he supposed to depend “upon a constriction of the pores,
or an obstruction of them by a superfluity of atoms; the chronic upon
a relaxation of the pores, or a deficiency of the atoms.” Asclepiades
was the inventor of many new methods in surgery and medicine. Amongst
these was bronchotomy for the relief of suffocation.[455] He practised
tracheotomy in angina, and scarification of the ankles in dropsy, and
recommended tapping with the smallest possible wound. He also observed
spontaneous dislocation of the hip joint.[456] Such things do not
emanate from mere quacks.

It may be remarked that there were many physicians of the name of
Asclepiades. It was a way they had of assuming a connection with the
famous medical family of that name.

The disciples of Asclepiades were called Asclepiadists. A few of them
became celebrities in their day.

PHILONIDES OF DYRRACHIUM lived in the first century, and wrote some
forty-five works on medicine.

ANTONIUS MUSA lived at the beginning of the Christian era, and was
a freedman and physician to the Emperor Augustus. When his Imperial
patient was seriously ill and had been made worse by a hot regimen and
treatment, Antonius cured him with cold bathing and cooling drinks.
Augustus rewarded him with a royal fee and permission to wear a gold
ring, and a statue was erected to him near that of Æsculapius by public
subscription. He wrote several works on pharmacy. He was also physician
to Horace.

MUSA introduced into medicine the use of adder’s flesh in the treatment
of malignant ulcers; he discovered some of the properties of lettuce,
chicory, and endive. Many of his medicines continued in use for ages.
For colds he used the over-potent remedies henbane, hemlock, and opium.
He was also celebrated for various antidotes which he discovered.[457]

His brother, named EUPHORBIUS, was a physician also, and gave his name
to a genus of plants, the _Euphorbiaceæ_ (Plin., lib. xxv., c. 7).

THEMISON OF LAODICEA (B.C. 50) was the founder of the school known as
the Methodical. This was a rival to that of the Hippocratic system,
which had hitherto been the dominant one. Themison was the most
important pupil of Asclepiades. He wrote on chronic diseases, and
was the first to describe elephantiasis in a treatise. He would have
written upon hydrophobia, but having in his youth once seen a case,
it so frightened him that he was attacked with some of the symptoms,
and dreaded a relapse if he set himself to write about it.[458] He
invented several famous remedies, such as diacodium, a preparation of
poppies, and diagrydium, a purgative of scammony. Asclepiades had his
“atoms,” Themison had his “pores.” You cannot found a medical system
without flying a particular flag. Themison’s “flag” was the “status
strictus,” or “laxus” of the pores; that is to say, disease is either
a condition of increased or diminished tension. He was the first who
described rheumatism, and probably the first European physician who
used leeches.[459]

He is said to have been attacked with hydrophobia, and to have
recovered. Juvenal satirised him (probably) in the lines—

    “How many patients Themison dispatched
    In one short autumn!”[460]

Themison’s principles differed from those of his master in many
respects, and besides rectifying his errors he introduced a greater
precision into his system.[461]

He chose a middle way between the doctrines of the Dogmatists and
Empirics. Writing of the Methodists, Celsus says: “They assert that
the knowledge of no cause whatever bears the least relation to the
method of cure; and that it is sufficient to observe some general
symptoms of distempers; and that there are three kinds of diseases,
one bound, another loose, and the third a mixture of these.”[462]
Sometimes the excretions of the sick are too small, sometimes too
large; one particular excretion may be in excess, another deficient;
the observation of these things constitutes the art of medicine, which
they defined as a certain way of proceeding, which the Greeks called
_Method_. They deduced indications of treatment from analogies in
symptoms, and made a bold classification of diseases; accurate as a
rule in their diagnosis, they were usually successful and rational in
their therapeutics. They entirely ignored any consideration of the
remote causes of diseases; their only object was to cure their patients
without speculating as to the reasons why they had become sick. They
repudiated the _Vis medicatrix_ theory.

EUDEMUS (B.C. 15) was a disciple of Themison. Cælius Aurelianus says
of him that in his practice he used to order clysters of cold water
for patients suffering from the iliac passion. It is probable that he
was the friend and physician of Livilla, and the man who poisoned her
husband Drusus. Tacitus speaks of him, saying that he made a great
parade of many secret remedies, with a view to extol his own abilities
as a doctor. It is possible, however, that this may not have been
the same Eudemus as the disciple of Themison the Methodist, as there
were several other physicians of that name. Our Eudemus made many
observations on hydrophobia, and remarked how rarely any sufferer
recovered who was attacked by it. He was put to death by order of
Tiberius.

MEGES, of Sidon (B.C. 20), was a famous surgeon, and a follower of
Themison. He invented instruments used in cutting for the stone. He
made observations on tumours of the breast and forward dislocations of
the knee. He was regarded by Celsus as the most skilful of those who
exercised the art of surgery.

VECTIUS VALLENS (_circ._ A.D. 37) was a pupil of Apuleius Celsus, and
was well known for his connection with Messalina, the wife of Claudius.
He belonged to Themison’s sect, and is introduced by Pliny in fact as
the author of an improvement upon it. It was the practice of all the
adherents of the Methodist school of medicine to pretend that by the
changes they had introduced into the system they had originated a new
one.[463]

SCRIBONIUS LARGUS (A.D. 45) is said to have been physician to Claudius,
and to have accompanied him to Britain. He wrote several medical works
in Latin. He was the first to prescribe the electricity of the electric
ray in cases of headache.[464]

A. CORNELIUS CELSUS, who flourished between B.C. 50 and A.D. 7, was
a celebrated patrician Roman writer on medicine, and an encyclopædic
compiler of a very high order. It is disputed whether he was or was
not a physician in actual practice; probably he was not. He practised
certainly, but on his friends and servants, and not professionally. The
medical practice of the period was for the most part in the hands of
the Greeks. We owe little to the Romans that was original or important
in connection with the healing art, yet in Celsus we have an elegant
and accomplished historian of the medical art as it was practised in
ancient Rome; he wrote not so much for doctors as for the instruction
of the world at large. His works were not studied by medical men, at
any rate, as anything more than mere literature. No medical writer of
the old world quotes Celsus. Pliny merely refers to him as an author.
Very probably he merely compiled his treatises, of which the most
celebrated is his _De Medicina_, in the introductions to the 4th and
8th books of which there is evidence of his considerable knowledge of
anatomy. He seems to have understood the anatomy of the chest and the
situation of the greater viscera especially well, though of course in
this respect falling far short of our present knowledge of the science,
and not in every case fully up to that of the Greeks. His knowledge
of surgery was considerable, especially that of the pelvic organs of
the female. In osteology, or the science of the bones, he excelled.
He accurately describes the bones of the skull, their sutures, and the
teeth. His descriptions of the vertebræ and ribs, the bones of the
pelvis and the upper and lower extremities, are accurate and careful.
He understood the articulations, and is careful to emphasize the fact
that cartilage is always found in their formation. He must have been
acquainted with the perforated plate of the ethmoid bone, as he speaks
of the many minute holes in the recess of the nasal cavities, and it is
even inferred by Portal that he knew the semicircular canals.[465]

The 7th and 8th books of the _De re Medicina_ relate entirely to
surgery; this is of course Greek, which in its turn was probably
of Egyptian and Indian origin. He describes operations such as we
now call “plastic,” for restoring lost or defective portions of the
nose, lips, and ears. These are constantly claimed as triumphs of
modern surgery, and have been asserted to have been successful as the
result of information derived from experiments on living animals.
His description of lithotomy is that which was anciently practised
in Alexandria, and was doubtless derived from India. Trephining the
skull is described, and this again is proved not to have been invented
in modern times, as some have thought. Even subcutaneous urethrotomy
was a practice followed in the time of Celsus. We have also the first
detailed description of the amputation of an extremity. Many ophthalmic
operations are described according to the methods followed by the eye
specialists of Alexandria.[466]

In his eight books on medicine the first four deal with internal
complaints, such as usually yield to careful dieting. The fifth
and sixth are concerned with external disorders, and contain many
prescriptions for their treatment. The seventh and eighth, as we have
seen, are exclusively surgical. Celsus followed principally Hippocrates
and Asclepiades as his authorities. He transfers many passages from the
Father of Medicine word for word. His favourite author was Asclepiades,
and it is for that reason that he is held to be of the Methodical
school of medicine. He was no believer in the mysterious numbers of the
Pythagorean, and was evidently quite free from slavish devotion, even
to his great authorities in medicine.

He recommends that dislocations should be reduced before inflammation
sets in. When fractures fail to unite, he recommends extension and
rubbing together of the ends of the bone. He goes so far as to advise
cutting down to the bone, and letting the fracture and wound heal
together. He cautions against the use of purgatives in strangulated
hernia, and gives directions for extracting foreign bodies from the
ears.

Had it not been for the works of Celsus, many operations of ancient
surgery would have remained to us undescribed. He writes at length on
bleeding, and describes the double ligation (or tying) of bleeding
vessels, and the division of the vessels between the ligatures: an
operation which the defenders of experiments on animals claim to have
been discovered by vivisection. His method of amputation in gangrene
by a single circular cut was followed down to the seventeenth century.
He describes the process of catheterization, operations for goitre (or
Derbyshire neck), the resection of the ribs, the use of enemas, and
artificial feeding by them, an operation for cataract, ear diseases
which are curable by the use of the ear syringe, extraction of teeth
by forceps, fastening loose teeth by means of gold wire, and bursting
hollow teeth by peppercorns pressed into them. He describes many of
the most difficult subjects of operative midwifery, and discriminates
in various mental diseases. Sleep must be induced, he says, in cases
of insanity, by narcotics, if it is absent. He treats eye diseases
with mild lotions and salves, and is the first writer to distinguish
hallucinations of vision. He copies from Asclepiades his valuable rules
of diet and simple methods of treatment, and from Hippocrates his
methods of recognising the signs of diseases and their prognosis.

(I am indebted to the great work of Dr. Hermann Baas[467] for much of
the above digest of the writings of Celsus.)

At the time when Celsus described the practice of medicine in Europe,
bleeding was practised more freely than was the custom in the days of
the great Greek physicians. The Romans went far beyond these. “It is
not,” said Celsus, “a new thing to let blood from the veins, but it
is new that there is scarcely any malady in which blood is not drawn.
Formerly they bled young men, and women who were not pregnant, but it
had not been seen till our days that children, pregnant women, and
old men were bled.” And it would seem that already doctors had begun
to bleed in almost every case, in every time of life, with or without
reason, the unfortunate people who were under their care. They bled for
high fever, when the body was flushed and the veins too full of blood;
and they bled in cachexia and anæmia, when they had not enough blood,
but were full of “ill humours.” They bled in pleurisy and pneumonia,
and they bled in paralysis, and cases where there was severe pain.

Celsus has given us a good description of the qualities which a surgeon
ought to possess: he should be young, or at any rate not very old; his
hand should be firm and steady, and never shake; he should be able to
use his left hand with as much dexterity as his right; his sight should
be acute and clear; his mind intrepid and pitiless, so that when he is
engaged in doing anything to a patient, he may not hurry, nor cut less
than he ought, but finish the operation just as if the cries of the
patient made no impression upon him.[468]

Celsus said,[469] “It is both cruel and superfluous to dissect the
bodies of the living, but to dissect those of the dead is necessary for
learners, for they ought to know the position and order, which dead
bodies show better than a living and wounded man. But even the other
things, which can only be observed in the living, practice itself will
show in the cures of the wounded, a little more slowly, but somewhat
more tenderly.”

He wrote on history, philosophy, oratory, and jurisprudence, and this
in the most admirable style.

THESSALUS of Tralles (A.D. 60) was the talented son of a weaver,
who became a “natural” doctor. He was an utterly ignorant, bragging
charlatan, with great natural ability. Had Paracelsus received no
education, he might have practised medicine as a second Thessalus
of Tralles. He scorned science as much as Paracelsus loved it, but
like him he abused in the most violent manner all the physicians of
antiquity. He called them all bunglers, and himself the “Conqueror of
Physicians” (ἰατροίκης). He declared to Nero that his predecessors
had contributed nothing to the progress of the science. He flattered
the great and wealthy, and vaunted his ability to teach anybody the
healing art in six months. He surrounded himself with a great crowd
of disciples—rope-makers, cooks, butchers, weavers, tanners, artisans
of all sorts. All these he permitted to practise on his patients,
and to kill them with impunity. Since his time, says Sprengel, the
Roman physicians gave up the custom of visiting their patients when
accompanied by their pupils.[470] He used colchicum in the treatment of
gout.

PHILUMENUS (about A.D. 80) was a famous writer on obstetrics, and
described the appropriate treatment for the various kinds of diarrhœa.

ANDROMACHUS THE ELDER (A.D. 60) of Crete was the inventor of a famous
cure-all called _Theriaca_. It was compounded of some sixty drugs. He
was physician to Nero, and his two works περὶ συνθεσέως φαρμάκων were
greatly praised by Galen.

SORANUS OF EPHESUS, the son of Menandrus, was educated at Alexandria.
He practised at Rome in the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian. He was one
of the most eminent physicians of the Methodical school, and was
mentioned with praise by Tertullian and St. Augustine. He wrote the
only complete treatise on the diseases of women which antiquity has
given to us. We find from this work that a valuable instrument used
in gynæcology, and thought by many to be of modern invention—the
speculum—was mentioned by Soranus as used by him. Amongst the articles
used by surgeons which have been recovered from the ruins of Pompeii,
these instruments have been discovered, showing that they were in
regular use in ancient times. He seems to have had a complete knowledge
of human anatomy, for he describes the uterus in such a manner as to
show that his knowledge was acquired by dissecting the human body,
and not merely from that of animals. He explained the changes induced
by pregnancy, and spoke of the sympathy existing between the uterus
and the breasts, which is so important for the physician to know. He
must have had a greater knowledge of the scourge of leprosy than his
contemporaries.

Soranus, in his work on gynæcology, advises that midwives should be
temperate, trustworthy, not avaricious, superstitious, or liable
to be induced to procure abortion for the sake of gain. They were
to be instructed in dietetics, materia medica, and minor surgical
manipulations. Soranus did not think it was requisite for them to know
much about the anatomy of the pelvic organs, but they were to be able
to undertake the operation of turning in faulty presentations. Only
when all attempts to deliver a living child had failed was embryotomy
to be performed. Juvenal and other writers intimate that these
accomplished accoucheuses often developed into regular doctresses. In
difficult cases they called in the assistance of physicians or surgeons.

JULIAN (A.D. 140) was the pupil of Apollinides of Cyprus. He was at
Alexandria when Galen studied there. He wrote an introduction to the
study of medicine, and opposed the principles of Hippocrates. Like the
greater number of the Methodists he was ill-read, and Galen blamed him
for having neglected the humoral pathology.[471]

CÆLIUS AURELIANUS was a celebrated Latin physician, who is supposed
to have lived in Rome about the first or second century. Very little
is known about him, but the fact that he belonged to the Methodical
school, and showed great skill in the art of diagnosis.

He wrote treatises on acute and chronic diseases, and a dialogue on
the science of medicine. Next to Celsus, he is considered the greatest
writer of his school. His works are based entirely on the Greek of
Soranus.

He was a popular writer, as is proved by the fact that in the sixth
century his works were text-books on medicine in the Benedictine
monasteries. He has well described gout and hydrophobia, and, according
to Baas, was the inventor of condensed milk (!). Even auscultation
is hinted at in his works, and he recommends the air of pine forests
in chest diseases. His suggestions for the treatment of nervous and
insane patients were far in advance of his age, as he disapproves of
restraint.[472]


GREEK AND ROMAN PHARMACY.

It is very difficult to decide with certainty what the ancients
actually intended by the names they gave their medicines. Exact as
Hippocrates and Galen usually are in their terminology, we are often
at a loss to know precisely what was the nature of the remedies they
employed. Alum, for example, as we understand it, is a very different
thing from the alum of the ancients. What the Greeks and Romans called
_alumen_ and στυπτηρία, says Beckmann, was vitriol, or rather a kind
of vitriolic earth. They were very deficient in the knowledge of
saline substances. Hemlock, which is called also _Conium_, Κώνειον, or
_Cicuta_, was probably not the poison employed at Athenian executions.
Pliny says that the word _Cicuta_ did not indicate any particular
species of plant, but was used for vegetable poisons in general. Dr.
Mead[473] considers that the Athenian poison was a combination of
deadly drugs; it killed without pain, and probably opium was combined
with the hemlock.[474] Hellebore was of two kinds, white and black,
or _Veratrum album_ and _Helleborus niger_ respectively. Galen says
we are always to understand veratrum when the word Ἑλλέβορος is used
alone. White hellebore was used by the Greeks, says Stillé,[475] in
the treatment of chronic diseases, especially melancholy, insanity,
dropsy, skin diseases, gout, tetanus, hydrophobia, tic doloureux, etc.
It was mixed with other drugs to moderate the violence of its action.
It fell into disuse, and is now hardly ever employed internally. It
is an exceedingly dangerous drug, and was doubtless used on the “kill
or cure” principle. Black hellebore was given as a purgative. Healthy
people took the white variety to clear and sharpen their faculties.
It fell into disuse about the fifth century after Christ. A very
celebrated medicine in popular use even in modern times was _Theriaca_.
Galen says that the term was properly applied to such medicines as
would cure the bite of wild beasts (θηρίων), as those which were
antidotes to other poisons (τοῖς δηλητηρίυις) were properly called
ἀλεξιφάρμακα.[476]

Andromachus, physician to the emperor Nero, invented the most
celebrated of these preparations; it was known as the _Theriaca
Andromachi_, and was very similar to that of Mithridates, king of
Pontus, the recipe for which was said to have been found amongst
his papers after his death by Pompey. This was known to the Roman
physicians under the name of _Antidotum Mithridatium_. The composition
of this medicine was varied greatly in the hands of its different
preparers, and it underwent considerable alterations from age to age.
Celsus first described it, with its thirty-six ingredients; then
Andromachus added to it the flesh of vipers, and increased the number
of ingredients to seventy-five. He described the whole process of
manufacture in a Greek poem, which has been handed down to us by Galen.
Damocrates varied some of the proportions of the compound, and wrote
another poem upon it, also preserved by Galen.

The medicines prescribed by the Greek and Roman physicians were all
prepared by themselves. At that time materia medica consisted chiefly
of herbs; some of these plants were used not only for medicinal,
but also for culinary purposes, and were collected by other than
practitioners of medicine. Many plants were used also for cosmetic
purposes and in the baths, so that there must have been numerous
collectors and dealers in herbs. Just as in our time dispensing
chemists and others have acquired a certain knowledge of the medicinal
virtues of the things they sell, so the _pigmentarii_, _seplasiarii_,
_pharmacopolæ_, and _medicamentarii_ possessed themselves of medical
secrets, and thus invaded the territory of the doctors.

Beckmann says[477] that the _pigmentarii_ dealt in medicines, and
sometimes sold poison by mistake.

The _seplasiarii_ sold veterinary medicines and compounded drugs for
physicians.[478]

The _pharmacopolæ_, according to Beckmann, were an ignorant and
boasting class of drug-sellers. The _medicamentarii_ seem to have been
a still more worthless class, for in the Theodosian code poisoners are
called medicamentarii.

A great number of the medical plants mentioned by Pliny, Dioscorides,
and other writers on materia medica were used for quite other purposes
than those for which we employ them now. Some drugs, however, were
apparently given on what we must admit to be correct scientific
principles. Thus Melampus of Argos, one of the oldest Greek physicians
of whom we have any knowledge, is said to have cured Iphiclus of
sterility by administering rust of iron in wine for ten days.

He gave black hellebore as a purgative to the daughters of Proetus when
they were afflicted with melancholy. Preparations of the poppy were
known to have a narcotic influence, and the uses of prussic acid—in
the form of cherry laurel water—stramonium, and lettuce-opium were
well understood. Squill was employed as a diuretic in dropsy by the
Egyptians.

 The following list from the article on “Pharmaceutica” in Smith’s
 _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities_ contains probably the
 titles of all the ancient treatises on drugs that are extant: “1. Περὶ
 Φαρμάκων, _De Remediis Purgantibus_; 2. Περὶ Ἑλλεβορισμοῦ, _De Veratri
 Usu_ (these two works are found among the collection that goes under
 the name of Hippocrates, but are both spurious); 3. Dioscorides, Περὶ
 Ὕλης Ἰατρικῆς, _De Materia Medica_, in five books (one of the most
 valuable and celebrated medical treatises of antiquity); 4. id. Περὶ
 Εὐπορίστων, Ἁπλῶν τε καὶ Συνθέτων, Φαρμάκων, _De Facile Parabilibus,
 tam Simplicibus quam Compositis, Medicamentis_, in two books (perhaps
 spurious); 5. Marcellus Sideta, Ἰατρικὰ περὶ Ἰχθύων, _De Remediis ex
 Piscibus_; 6. Galen, Περὶ Κράσεως καὶ Δυνάμεως τῶν Ἁπλῶν Φαρμάκων,
 _De Simplicium Medicamentorum Temperamentis et Facultatibus_, in
 eleven books; 7. _id._ Περὶ Συνθέσεως Φαρμάκων τῶν κατὰ Τόπους, _De
 Compositione Medicamentorum secundum Locos_, in ten books; 8. _id._
 Περὶ Συνθέσεως Φαρμάκων τῶν κατὰ Γένη, _De Compositione Medicamentorum
 secundum Genera_, in seven books; 9. _id._ Περὶ τῆς τῶν Καθαιρόντων
 Φαρμάκων Δυνάμεως, _De Purgantium Medicamentorum Facultate_ (perhaps
 spurious); 10. Oribasius, Συναγωγαὶ Ἰατρικαί, _Collecta Medicinalia_,
 consisting originally of seventy books, of which we possess now
 only about one third; 11. _id._ Εὐπόριστα, _Euporista ad Eunapium_,
 or _De facile Parabilibus_, in four books, of which the second
 contains an alphabetical list of drugs; 12. _id._ Σύνοψις, _Synopsis
 ad Eustathium_, an abridgment of his larger work in nine books, of
 which the second, third, and fourth are upon the subject of external
 and internal remedies; 13. Paulus Ægineta, Ἐπιτομῆς Ἰατρικῆς Βιβλία
 Ἕπτα, _Compendii Medici Libri Septem_, of which the last treats of
 medicines; 14. Joannes Actuarius, _De Medicamentorum Compositione_;
 15. Nicolaus Myrepsus, _Antidotarium_; 16. Cato, _De Re Rustica_;
 17. Celsus, _De Medicina Libri Octo_, of which the fifth treats of
 different sorts of medicines; 18. Twelve books of Pliny’s, _Historia
 Naturalis_ (from the twentieth to the thirty-second), are devoted to
 Materia Medica; 19. Scribonius Largus, _Compositiones Medicamentorum_;
 20. Apuleius Barbarus, _Herbarium, seu de Medicaminibus Herbarum_;
 21. Sextus Placitus Papyriensis, _De Medicamentis ex Animalibus_;
 22. Marcellus Empiricus, _De Medicamentis Empiricis, Physicis, ac
 Rationalibus_.”

Although the Greeks and Romans knew little of chemistry as we
understand the term, they must have possessed considerable skill in the
art of secret poisoning, either with intent to kill or to obtain undue
influence over certain persons.

Poisonous drugs were used as philtres or love-potions, and we know from
Demosthenes[479] that drugs were administered in Athens to influence
men to make wills in a desired manner. Women were most addicted to the
crime of poisoning amongst the Greeks. They were called φαρμακίδες
and φαρμακευτρίαι. By the Romans the crime of poisoning was called
Veneficium; and here again, as in other times and places, it was
most usually practised by women. It lent itself to the weakness of
the gentler sex, who could not avenge their injuries by arms, and
there is little doubt that many women were as unjustly suspected of
poisoning as we know they were of witchcraft in an ignorant age when
pestilence and obscure diseases filled the minds of the people with
fear and suspicion. Thucydides tells us[480] the Athenians in the time
of the great pestilence believed that their wells had been poisoned
by their enemies. When the city of Rome was visited by a pestilence
in the year 331 B.C., a slave girl informed the curule aediles that
the Roman matrons had caused the deaths of many of the leading men of
the State by poisoning them. On this information about twenty matrons,
some of whom, as Cornelia and Sergia, belonged to patrician families,
were detected in the act of preparing poisonous compounds over a fire.
They protested that they were innocent concoctions; the magistrates
compelling them to drink these in the Forum, they suffered the death
they had prepared for others. Locusta was a celebrated female poisoner
under the Roman emperors. She poisoned Claudius at the command of
Agrippina, and Britannicus at that of Nero, who even provided her
with pupils to be instructed in her deadly art. Tacitus tells the
story,[481] Suetonius says,[482] that the poison she administered to
Britannicus being too slow in its action, Nero forced her by blows and
threats to make a stronger draught in his presence, which killed the
victim immediately. She was executed under the emperor Galba.

Clement of Alexandria refers to the Susinian ointment in use in his
time, which was made from lilies, and was “warming, aperient, drawing,
moistening, abstergent, antibilious, and emollient,” a truly marvellous
unguent indeed if it possessed only half of these virtues. He tells
of another ointment called the Myrsinian, which was made from myrtle
berries, and was “a styptic, stopping effusions from the body; and that
from roses is refrigerating.”[483]

       *       *       *       *       *

RUFUS OF EPHESUS, the anatomist, has left us in his works interesting
details concerning the state of anatomical science at Alexandria before
the time of Galen. In one of his works he says, “The ancients called
the arteries of the neck carotids, because they believed that, when
pressed hard, the animal became sleepy and lost its voice; but in our
age it has been discovered that this accident does not proceed from
pressing upon these arteries, but upon the nerves contiguous to them.”
He is said to have practised the twisting of arteries for arresting
hæmorrhage, a method universally followed at the present day. It is
curious that though the ligature and this valuable method of torsion
were both known to the ancients, they fell into abeyance in favour of
the actual cautery.

SENECA, the philosopher (A.D. 3-65), had a very high opinion of the
healing art. Perhaps no one has said truer and kinder things of doctors
than this philosopher. “People pay the doctor for his trouble; for his
kindness they still remain in his debt.” “Thinkest thou that thou owest
the doctor and the teacher nothing more than his fee? We think that
great reverence and love are due to both. We have received from them
priceless benefits: from the doctor, health and life; from the teacher,
the noble culture of the soul. Both are our friends, and deserve our
most sincere thanks, not so much by their merchantable art, as by their
frank good will.”[484]

APOLLONIUS of Tyana, the Pythagorean philosopher, was born four years
before Christ. His reputation as a miracle-worker and healer was used
by the enemies of the Christian faith in ancient times to bring him
forward as a rival to the Author of our Religion.[485] The attempt
to make him appear a pagan Christ has since been revived.[486] He
adopted the Pythagorean philosophy at the age of sixteen. He renounced
animal food and wine, used only linen garments and sandals made of
bark, suffered his hair to grow, and betook himself to the temple of
Æsculapius, who appears to have regarded him with peculiar favour.
He observed the silence of five years, which was one of the methods
of initiation into the esoteric doctrines of the Pythagoreans. He
travelled in India, and learned the valuable theurgic secrets of the
Brahmans; in the cities of Asia Minor he had some interviews with the
Magi; visited the temples and oracles of Greece, where he sometimes
exercised his skill in healing; then he went to Rome, where he was
brought before Nero on the charge of magical practices, which was
not sustained. In his seventy-third year he attracted the notice of
Vespasian. Afterwards he travelled in Ethiopia. Returning to Rome, he
was imprisoned by Domitian, and had his hair cut short, because he had
foretold the pestilence at Ephesus. He died at the age of an hundred
years. It is to be remarked that he never put forward any miraculous
pretensions himself; he seems merely to have been a learned philosopher
who had travelled widely and acquired vast information from distant
sources. The history manufactured for him is plainly an imitation from
that of our Lord, concocted by persons interested in degrading the
character of Christ.[487]

PLINY THE ELDER (23-79 A.D.), the author of the immense encyclopædic
work, his famous _Natural History_, was not a man of genius, nor even
an original observer, his work is but a compilation, and contains
more falsehood than fact, and more absurdities than either. He cannot
be called a naturalist, though he wrote on natural history; nor a
physician, though he wrote of diseases and their remedies. His work is
valuable chiefly as a picture of the general knowledge of his time. The
following is an example of the medical lore of the period. Pliny says
that a woman dreamt that some one was directed to send to her son, a
soldier in Spain, some roots of the dog-rose. It happened that exactly
at that time her son had been bitten by a mad dog, and had received a
letter from his mother, who had dreamt about him, and she begged him to
use these roots as she directed. He did so, and was “protected” from
hydrophobia, as were many others of his friends who adopted the same
treatment. Thus it was that the wild-rose was called the dog-rose.

DIOSCORIDES lived in the first or second century of our era. He was
a physician who rendered greater services than any other to Materia
Medica. His work on this subject was the result of immense labour and
research, and remained for ages the standard authority; it contained
a description of everything used in medicine, and is a most valuable
document for the historian of the healing art of the period. Galen
highly valued the work of Dioscorides, which must have been of the
greatest use to the doctors of the time, who were obliged to prepare
their own medicines. Drugs were so much adulterated that it was unsafe
to procure them from the stores in Rome.

MARINUS was a famous anatomist, who lived in the first and second
centuries after Christ. Galen’s tutor Quintus was one of his pupils. He
wrote many works on anatomy, which Galen abridged and praised, saying
that he was one of the restorers of anatomical science.

QUINTUS, an eminent Roman physician of the second century, was a pupil
of Marinus. He was celebrated for his knowledge of anatomy.

ZENON lived in the fourth century, and taught medicine at Alexandria.
Julian (A.D. 361 _circ._) wrote in very high terms of the medical skill
of this physician.

MAGNUS OF ALEXANDRIA was a pupil of the above, who lectured on medicine
at Alexandria, where he was very famous. He wrote a work on the urine.

IONICUS OF SARDIS studied under Zenon. He was not only distinguished
in all branches of medicine, but was versed in rhetoric, logic, and
poetry.

THEON OF ALEXANDRIA, of very uncertain period, probably in the fourth
century after Christ, wrote a celebrated book on _Man_, in which he
treated of diseases in a systematic order, and also of pharmacy.




CHAPTER V.

LATER ROMAN MEDICINE.

 The Eclectic and Pneumatic Sects.—Galen.—Neo-Platonism.—Oribasius and
 Ætius.—Influence of Christianity and the Rise of Hospitals.—Paulus
 Ægineta.—Ancient Surgical Instruments.


THE SECT OF THE PNEUMATISTS.

ATHENÆUS OF CILICIA about A.D. 69 founded at Rome the SECT OF THE
PNEUMATISTS, at the time when the Methodists enjoyed their greatest
reputation.

They admitted an active principle of an immaterial nature, to which
they gave the name of πνεῦμα, spirit. This principle caused the health
or the diseases of the body, and the sect was named from it. Athenæus
was a Stoic, who had adopted the doctrines of the Peripatetics. In
addition to the _pneuma_, he developed the theory of the elements, and
in them recognised the positive qualities of the animal frame. The
union of heat and moisture is necessary for the preservation of health.
Heat and dryness cause acute diseases, cold and moisture produce
phlegmatic disorders, cold and dryness give rise to melancholy. At
death, all things dry up and become cold.[488]

Great services to pathology were rendered by the Pneumatic sect.
Several new diseases were discovered by them; but they over refined
their doctrines, especially that of fevers and the pulse; they
thought this alternate contraction and dilatation of the arteries
was the operation of the _pneuma_, or spirit passing from the heart.
_Diastole_ or _dilatation_ pushes forward the spirit, the _systole_ or
_contraction_ draws it back.[489]


THE SECT OF THE ECLECTICS

Derived their name from the fact that they selected from each of the
other sects the opinions that seemed most probable. They seem to have
agreed very nearly, if they were not actually identical with the sect
known as the EPISYNTHETICS. They endeavoured to join the tenets of the
Methodici to those of the Empiric and Dogmatic sects, and to reconcile
their differences.[490]

Amongst the most famous of the school were AGATHINUS OF SPARTA (1st
cent. A.D.), who founded the Episynthetic sect, though Galen refers
to him as among the Pneumatici. He was a pupil of Athenæus, and the
tutor of Archigenes. None of his writings are extant. THEODORUS was a
physician mentioned by Pliny.[491]

ARCHIGENES OF APAMÆA, who practised in Rome (A.D. 98-117), was
exceedingly famous. He is mentioned several times by Juvenal,[492]
and was the most celebrated of the sect. He wrote on the pulse, and
attempted the classification of fevers. Very few fragments of his works
remain. He was the first to treat dysentery with opium.

ARETÆUS OF CAPPADOCIA (1st cent, A.D.) was a celebrated Greek physician
who wrote on diseases, detailing their symptoms with great accuracy and
displaying great skill in diagnosis. He was very little biased by any
peculiar opinions, and his observations on diseases and their treatment
have stood the light of our modern medical science better than those of
many of the ancient authorities. He was acquainted with the fact that
injuries to the brain cause paralysis on the opposite side; and his
classification of mental diseases is as good as our own. His knowledge
of anatomy was considerable, and in his physiology he shows how much
more the ancients knew of this branch of science than is generally
supposed. He was acquainted with the operation of tracheotomy, and
remarked its partial success.[493]

He considered elephantiasis to be contagious, and gives this caution:
“That it is not less dangerous to converse and live with persons
affected with this distemper, than with those infected with the plague;
because the contagion is communicated by the inspired air.”[494]

HERODOTUS (there were several of the name) was a physician of repute
in Rome (about A.D. 100). He was a pupil of Athenæus or Agathinus, and
wrote several medical books which are quoted by Galen and Oribasius.
He first recommended pomegranate root as a remedy for tape-worm, and
described several infectious diseases.[495]

HELIODORUS (about A.D. 100) was a famous surgeon, and wrote on
amputations and injuries of the head. His operation for scrotal hernia
is described by Haeser as “a brilliant example of the surgical skill of
the Empire.” He treated stricture of the urethra by internal section.

CASSIUS FELIX lived in the first century after Christ, and was the
author of a curious set of eighty-four medical questions and their
answers. He was also called CASSIUS IATROSOPHISTA.

LEONIDAS of Alexandria lived in the second or third century after
Christ, was a distinguished surgeon, who operated on strumous glands,
and amputated by the flap operation.

CLAUDIUS GALENUS, commonly called Galen, or, as mediæval writers named
him, Gallien, was a very celebrated physician and philosopher, who
was born at Pergamos in Asia, A.D. 131, under Hadrian. His father,
Nicon, was an architect and geometrician, a highly cultivated and
estimable man. His mother was a passionate scold, who led her husband
a worse life than Xantippe led Socrates. Nicon spared no pains to
give his son an education which should fit him to be a philosopher,
and in his fifteenth year he was a pupil of the Stoic, Platonist,
Peripatetic, and Epicurean philosophies. In his seventeenth year his
father, in consequence of a dream, changed his intentions concerning
his son’s profession, and determined that he should study medicine. His
first tutors were Æschrion, Satyrus, and Stratonicus. He studied the
doctrines of all the sects of medicine in the school of Alexandria, and
travelled in Egypt, Greece, Asia, and Italy. He devoted himself to none
of the schools of medicine whose doctrines he had studied, but struck
out a path for himself. On his return to Pergamos, he was selected to
take charge of the wounded gladiators, a position which afforded him
opportunities for studying surgical operations. He filled this post
with great reputation and success. When he was thirty-four years old
he went to Rome for the first time, remaining there four years, and
acquiring a great reputation for his knowledge of anatomy, physiology,
and medicine. He was connected with many persons of great influence,
and his popularity at last became so great that it excited the ill-will
of his professional brethren, especially as by his lecturing, writing,
and disputing, his name was constantly before them. So great was the
ill-feeling they bore towards him that he was afraid of being poisoned.
He was called the “wonder speaker” and the “wonder worker.”

“The greatest savant of all the ancient physicians,” says Sprengel,
“was Galen. He strove to introduce into medicine a severe dogmatism,
and to give it a scientific appearance, borrowed almost entirely
from the Peripatetic school. The enormous number of his works, the
systematic order which distinguishes them, and the elegance of their
style, won over, as by an irresistible charm, the indolent physicians
who succeeded him, so that during many ages his system was considered
as immovable.”[496]

For thirteen centuries his name and influence dominated the medical
profession in Europe, Asia, and Africa; and this influence, under
the name of Galenism, was paramount in the eighteenth century,
notwithstanding the discovery of the circulation of the blood and
other great advances in science. Galen collected and co-ordinated all
the medical knowledge which previous physicians and anatomists had
acquired. He was no mere collector of, or compiler of other men’s
works; but he enriched previous acquirements by his own observation,
and was in every way a man greatly in advance of his time. “A great
and profound spirit,” says Daremberg, “he was philosopher as well as
physician, realising the aspiration of Hippocrates when he said that
the physician who should be also a philosopher must be the equal of
the gods. A dialectician like Aristotle, a psychologist like Plato,
who glorified his work by his genius for interpreting nature and
life, his position as philosopher would have been beside those men,
if his devotion to medicine had not called him to another sphere of
intellectual activity.” Nevertheless, Galen did in fact occupy an
exalted position in the history of philosophy, not only in the West,
but amongst the Arabians. His encyclopædic knowledge, his spirit of
observation, and his influence on the thought of the middle ages,
compel a comparison with Aristotle. It was thus that the vast body
of medical material collected by the various sects and schools was
analysed by the penetrating genius of Galen, whose philosophical and
scientific mind was able to extract the good and permanent from the
worthless and ephemeral material, which encumbered the literature
of the healing art. He fell under the domination of none of the
schools, though in one sense he may be said to have leaned towards
the Dogmatists, “for his method was to reduce all his knowledge,
as acquired by the observation of facts, to general theoretical
principles.”[497] He endeavoured to draw the student of medicine back
to Hippocrates, of whom he was an admirer and expounder. The labours
of Galen had the effect of destroying the vitality of the old medical
sects; they became merged in his system, and left off wrangling
amongst themselves to imitate the new master who had arisen. A crowd
of new writers found in the works of Galen abundant material for their
industry.

Partly in consequence of this jealousy, and partly from the fact that
in A.D. 167 a pestilence broke out in Rome, he left the city privately,
and returned to his native country.

Galen, as a profound anatomist and physiologist, recognised final
causes, a purpose in all parts of the bodies which he dissected; and it
is, as Whewell points out,[498] impossible for a really great anatomist
to do other than recognise these. He cannot doubt that the nerves run
along the limbs, _in order_ that they may convey the impulses of the
will to the muscles: he cannot doubt that the muscles are attached to
the bones, _in order_ that they move and support them.

The development of this conviction, that there is a purpose in the
parts of animals of a function to which every organ is subservient,
greatly contributed to the progress of physiology; it compelled men
to work till they had discovered what the purpose is. Galen declared
that it is easy to say with some impotent pretenders that Nature has
worked to no purpose. He has an enthusiastic scorn of the folly of
atheism.[499] “Try,” he says, “if you can imagine a shoe made with
half the skill which appears in the skin of the foot.” Somebody had
expressed a desire for some structure of the human body over that
which Nature has provided. “See,” he exclaims, “what brutishness there
is in this wish. But if I were to spend more words on such cattle,
reasonable men might blame me for desecrating my work, which I regard
as a religious hymn in honour of the Creator. True piety does not
consist in immolating hecatombs, or in bearing a thousand delicious
perfumes in His honour, but in recognising and loudly proclaiming His
wisdom, almighty power, love and goodness. The Father of universal
nature has proved His goodness in wisely providing for the happiness of
all His creatures, in giving to each that which is most really useful
for them. Let us celebrate Him then by our hymns and chants! He has
shown His infinite wisdom in choosing the best means for contriving
His beneficent ends; He has given proof of His omnipotence in creating
everything perfectly conformable to its destination.”

Anatomy must have reached a high standard before Galen’s time, as
we learn from his corrections of the mistakes and defects of his
predecessors. He remarks that some anatomists have made one muscle into
two, from its having two heads; that they have overlooked some of the
muscles in the face of an ape in consequence of not skinning the animal
with their own hands. This shows that the anatomists before Galen’s
time had a tolerably complete knowledge of the science. But Galen
greatly advanced it. He observes that the skeleton may be compared
to the pole of a tent or the walls of a house. His knowledge of the
action of the muscles was anatomically and mechanically correct. His
discoveries and descriptions even of the very minute parts of the
muscular system are highly praised by modern anatomists.[500]

He knew the necessity of the nerve supply to the muscle, and that the
brain originated the consequent motion of a muscle so supplied, and
proved the fact experimentally by cutting through some of the nerves
and so paralysing the part.[501] Where the origin of the nerve is,
there, he said, it is admitted by all physicians and philosophers
is the seat of the soul. This, he adds, is in the brain and not in
the heart. The principles of voluntary motion were well understood,
therefore, by Galen, and he must have possessed “clear mechanical views
of what the tensions of collections of strings could do, and an exact
practical acquaintance with the muscular cordage which exists in the
animal frame:—in short, in this as in other instances of real advance
in science, there must have been clear ideas and real facts, unity of
thought and extent of observation, brought into contact.”[502]

He observed that although a ligature on the inguinal or axillary artery
causes the pulse to cease in the leg or in the arm, the operation is
not permanently injurious, and that even the carotid arteries may be
tied with impunity. He corrects the error of those who, in tying the
carotids, omitted to separate the contiguous nerves, and then wrongly
concluded that the consequent loss of voice was due to compression of
the arteries.

Galen was the first and greatest authority on the pulse, if not our
sole authority; for all subsequent writers simply transferred his
teaching on this subject bodily to their own works.[503]

Briefly it was as follows: “The pulse consists of four parts, of a
diastole and a systole, with two intervals of rest, one after the
diastole before the systole, the other after the systole before the
diastole.”[504]

His therapeutics were based on these two principles:—“1. That disease
is something contrary to nature, and is to be overcome by that which is
contrary to the disease itself; and 2. That nature is to be preserved
by that which has relation with nature.”[505]

The affection contrary to nature must be overcome, and the strength
of the body has to be preserved. But while the _cause_ of the disease
continues to operate, we must endeavour to remove it; we are not to
treat symptoms merely, for they will disappear when their cause is
removed, and we must consider the constitution and condition of the
patient before we proceed to treat him.

“Such as are essentially of a good constitution are such in whose
bodies heat, coldness, dryness, and moisture are equally tempered; the
instruments of the body are composed in every part of due bigness,
number, place, and formation.”[506] He gives in succeeding chapters
the signs of a hot, cold, dry, moist, hot and dry, hot and moist, cold
and dry, and cold and moist brain; of a heart overheated, of a heart
too cold, of a dry and of a moist heart, of a heart hot and dry, hot
and moist, cold and moist, cold and dry heart. The liver is described
under the same conditions.

Galen’s surgery is not of very great importance, but he is credited
with the resection of a portion of the sternum for caries and with
ligature of the temporal artery.[507]

He applied the doctrine of the four elements to his theories of
diseases. “Fire is hot and dry; air is hot and moist; for the air is
like a vapour; water is cold and moist, and earth is cold and dry.”

Galen’s pathology is explained by Sprengel thus: when the body is free
from pain, and performs its functions without obstacle, it is in a
state of health; when the functions are disturbed, there is a state of
disease. The effect of disturbed functions is _the affection_ (πάθος);
that which determines this injury is the cause of the disease, the
sensible effects of which are the symptoms.

Diseases (διάθεσις) are unnatural states either of the similar parts
or of the organs themselves. Those of the similar parts proceed in
general from the want of proportion among the elements, of which one
or two predominate. In this manner arise eight different dyscrasies,
or ill states of the constitution. Symptoms consist either in deranged
function or vicious secretions. The internal causes of disease depend
almost always on the superabundance or deterioration of the humours.
Galen calls every disorder of the humours a putridity; it is due
to a stagnant humour being exposed to a high temperature without
evaporating. Thus suppuration and the sediment of urine are proofs of
putridity. In every fever there is a kind of putridity which gives out
an unnatural heat, which becomes the cause of fever, because the heart
and the arterial system take part in it.

Choulant enumerates eighty-three works of Galen which are acknowledged
as genuine, nineteen which are doubtful, forty-five spurious, nineteen
fragments; and fifteen commentaries on different books of Hippocrates;
and more than fifty short pieces and fragments for the most part
probably spurious, which are still lying unpublished in the libraries
of Europe. Besides these Galen wrote many other works, the titles
of which only remain to us; so that it is estimated that altogether
the number of his different books cannot have been less than five
hundred.[508] He wrote, not on medicine only, but on ethics, logic,
grammar, and other philosophical subjects; he was therefore amongst
the greatest and most voluminous authors that have ever lived.[509]
His style is elegant, but he is given to prolixity, and he abounds in
quotations from the Greek writers.

PHILIP OF CÆSAREA was a contemporary of Galen about the middle of the
second century after Christ. He belonged to the sect of the Empirici,
and defended their doctrines. It is probable that he wrote on marasmus,
on materia medica, and on catalepsy; but as there were other physicians
of the same name, there is much uncertainty as to their identity.

After the death of Galen came the Gothic invasions over the civilized
world, and all but extinguished the learning of the times. Medicine
lingered still in Rome, Constantinople, and Alexandria, but individuals
rather than schools and sects kept it alive; it struggled to exist
amidst the grossest ignorance, superstition, and magical practices,
till it was re-invigorated by the Saracens.

Saints COSMAS and DAMIAN (_circ._ 303) were brothers who studied the
sciences in Syria, and became eminent for their skill in the practice
of medicine. As they were Christians, and eager to spread the faith
which they professed, they never took any fees, and thus came to be
called by the Greeks _Anargyri_ (without fees). The two brothers
suffered martyrdom under the Diocletian persecution, and have ever
since been famous as workers of miracles of healing and patrons of
medical science. Their relics were everywhere honoured, and a church
built in Rome by St. Gregory the Great preserves them to this day.

Dr. Meryon points out[510] that Gregory the Great enunciated one
great doctrine of homœopathy: “Mos medicinæ est ut aliquando similia
similibus, aliquando contraria contrairiis curet. Nam sæpe calida
calidis, frigida frigidis, sæpe autem frigida calidis, calida frigidis
sanare consuevit.”

ALEXANDER OF TRALLES, though one of the most eminent ancient
physicians, believed in charms and amulets. Here are a few specimens.
For a quotidian ague, “Gather an olive leaf before sunrise, write on
it with common ink κα, ροι, α, and hang it round the neck” (xii. 7, p.
339); for the gout, “Write on a thin plate of gold, during the waning
of the moon, μεί, θρεύ, μόρ, φόρ, τεύξ, βαίν, χωώκ” (xi. l. p. 313). He
exorcised the gout thus: “I adjure thee by the great name Ἰαὼ Σαβαώθ,”
that is, יְהֹוָה צְבָאוֹת and a little further on: “I adjure thee by
the holy names Ἰαὼ, Σαβαὼθ, Ἀδωναὶ, Ἐλωὶ,” that is אֲדֹנָי אֱלֹהָי
יְהֹוָה צְבָאוֹת.[511]

Neoplatonism had its influence on medicine. Plotinus (A.D. 205-270),
its great father, said, when dying, “I am striving to bring the God
which is in us into harmony with the God which is in the Universe.”
The early Christians began to tell the world that the God within the
soul of man and the God which is in the Universe are one and the same
being, of absolute righteousness, power and love. Plotinus preached a
gospel to the philosophic world; the first Christians preached theirs
to every creature. Neoplatonism taught the world that spirit was meant
to rule matter: it was not enough that the early Christian exhibited
to mankind man transformed as the result of his intimate relationship
to the Divine, the philosophic world demanded wonders, something
above nature, as a proof of the Divine character of the revelation;
then, as Kingsley explains,[512] we begin to enter “the fairy land of
ecstasy, clairvoyance, insensibility to pain, cures produced by the
effect of what we now call mesmerism. They are all there, these modern
puzzles, in those old books of the long bygone seekers for wisdom.”
Thus mankind, for ever wandering in a circle, began by these ecstasies
and cures to retrace its steps towards the ancient priestcraft. These
wonders were nothing to the Egyptian, Babylonian, and Jewish sorcerers;
they had traded in them for ages.

ANTYLLUS (_circ._ 300 A.D.) is mentioned by Oribasius, and is said by
Häser to have been one of the greatest of the world’s surgeons; for
aneurism he tied the artery above and below the sac, and evacuated its
contents; for cataract, and for the cure of stammering, he invented
appropriate treatment; and he employed something very much like
tenotomy for contractures. He is the earliest writer whose directions
are extant for performing the operation of tracheotomy. He must have
been a man of great talent and originality. He practised the removal of
glandular swellings of the neck and ligatured vessels before dividing
them, giving directions for avoiding the carotid artery and the jugular
vein. It is a striking proof of the high state which surgery had
reached at this period that bones were resected with freedom; the long
bones, the lower jaw, and the upper jaw were dealt with in a manner
generally considered to be brilliant examples of modern surgery.

ORIBASIUS (A.D. 326-403) was born at Pergamos. By command of the
Emperor Julian the Apostate he made a summary from the works of all
preceding physicians who had written upon the Healing Art. Having made
a collection of some seventy medical treatises, he reduced them into
one, adding thereto the results of his own observations and experience.
He also wrote for his friend Eunapius two books on diseases and their
remedies, besides treatises on anatomy and an epitome of the works of
Galen.[513] He was called the Ape of Galen, and Freind says the title
was not undeserved. He wrote in Greek, and though a mere compiler was
capable of better things. His pharmacy was that of Dioscorides. He did
some original work, as he was the first to write a description of the
drum of the ear and the salivary glands. In his works also, we find the
first description of the wonderful disease called lycanthropy, a form
of melancholia, or insanity,[514] in which the affected persons believe
themselves to be transformed into wolves, leaving their homes at night,
imitating the behaviour of those animals, and wandering amongst the
tombs. His great work he entitled _Collecta Medicinalia_. When Julian
died, Oribasius fell into disgrace, and was banished. He bore his
misfortunes with great fortitude, and so gained the esteem and love of
the “barbarians” amongst whom he lived that he was almost adored as a
god. He was ultimately restored to his property and honour.

JACOBUS PSYCHRISTUS lived in the time of Leo I. Thrax (A.D. 457-474),
was a very famous physician of Constantinople, who was called “the
Saviour,” on account of his successful practice.

ADAMANTIUS OF ALEXANDRIA, an Iatrosophist, was a Jewish physician, who
was expelled, with his co-religionists, from Alexandria, A.D. 415. He
embraced Christianity at Constantinople. He wrote on physiognomy.

Iatrosophista was the ancient title of one who both taught and
practised medicine.

Archiater (chief physician) was a medical title under the Roman Empire,
meaning “the chief of the physicians,” and not “physician to the
prince,” as some have explained.[515]

MELETIUS (4th cent. A.D.), a Christian monk, wrote on physiology and
anatomy.

NEMESIUS, Bishop of Emissa (near the end of the fourth century), wrote
a treatise on the _Nature of Man_, which is remarkable for a proof that
the good Churchman came very near to two discoveries which were made
long after his time. He says that the object of the bile is to help
digestion, to purify the blood, and impart heat to the body. Freind
says[516] that in this we have the foundation of that which Sylvius de
la Boë with so much vanity boasted he had invented himself. He adds
that “if this theory be of any use in physic, Nemesius has a very good
title to the discovery.”

The Bishop described the circulation of the blood in very plain terms
considering the state of physiology at that time.

“The motion of the pulse takes its rise from the heart, and chiefly
from the left ventricle of it; the artery is, with great vehemence,
dilated and contracted by a sort of constant harmony and order. While
it is dilated it draws the thinner part of the blood from the next
veins, the exhalation or vapour of which blood is made the aliment for
the vital spirit. But while it is contracted it exhales whatever fumes
it has through the whole body and by secret passages. So that the heart
throws out whatever is fuliginous through the mouth and the nose by
expiration.”[517]

LUCIUS wrote on pharmacy in the first century.

MARCELLUS EMPIRICUS (4th cent.) wrote a work on pharmacy, in Latin,
which contains many charms and absurdities.

ÆTIUS was a Greek medical writer, who probably was a Christian of the
sixth century. He was a native of Amida in Mesopotamia, and studied
medicine at Alexandria. He wrote the _Sixteen Books on Medicine_, one
of the most valuable medical treatises of antiquity; though containing
little original matter, it includes numerous extracts from works which
have since perished.[518]

Many of the opinions of Ætius on surgery are excellent; he recommended
the seton, and lithotomy for women. Bleeding arteries he treated by
twisting, as we do now, and by tying. He advised irrigation with cold
water in the treatment of wounds. In lithotomy he recommends that the
knife should be guarded by a tube. He treated worms with pomegranate
bark, as has been recently revived.[519] He was the first Greek medical
writer amongst the Christians who gives specimens of the spells and
charms so much used by the Egyptian Christians in surgical cases; thus,
in case of a bone sticking in the throat, the physician was to cry out
in a loud voice, “As Jesus Christ drew Lazarus from the grave, and
Jonah out of the whale, thus Blasius, the martyr and servant of God,
commands, ‘Bone, come up or go down!’”[520]


INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY

At the time when the civilizations of Greece and Rome had reached
their highest perfection, the poison of sensual indulgence, elevated
into a religion, had instilled itself into the whole social life of
the people: in every incident of life, in business, in pleasure, in
literature, in politics, in arms, in the theatres, in the streets,
in the baths, at the games, in the decorations of his home, in the
ornaments and service of his table, in the very conditions of the
weather and the physical phenomena of nature[521] it met the Roman,
and tainted every action of his life. Archdeacon Farrar, in the first
chapter of his _Early Days of Christianity_, draws an awful picture of
the corruption of the old world at the moment when it was confronted
by Christianity. The parent had absolute power over the person of his
child, and could destroy its life at its pleasure. Unfortunate children
were exposed on the roadside or left to perish in the waters of the
Tiber. The slave was the mere chattel of his master, and Roman women
treated their servants with the utmost barbarity. Juvenal has painted
for us in terrible colours the vices and shameless conduct of the
women, and the selfish luxury and degrading pleasures of the men; the
nameless crime, which was the disgrace of Greek and Roman civilization,
was looked upon as merely a question of taste; and St. Paul, in the
first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, has recorded for all time
what was the highest the most perfect civilization Paganism has ever
produced was able to effect for the moral condition of the people. To
the Roman and Greek world, saturated with the most perfect philosophy
the world has ever known, and adorned by the art which has ever since
been the despair of its imitators, there presented itself the Catholic
Church, and before the sun’s embrace sublime

                        “Night wist
    Her work done, and betook herself in mist
    To marsh and hollow, there to bide her time
    Blindly in acquiescence.”[522]

The enemies of Christianity have affected to lament the effects
produced by the religion of Jesus on the art and science of the pagan
world; it has been said that the early Christians became so indifferent
to the welfare of their bodies that they no longer sought medical aid
when sick, but either resigned themselves to death or sought remedies
in prayers. It is quite possible that, at the soul’s awakening at the
first revelation of the infinite importance of the spiritual life, men
did somewhat neglect the ailments of the flesh and forget them in the
effort to realize the things of the spirit. It is perfectly true that
the natural sciences were not likely to make much progress in such
a condition of things. But if Christians were careless of their own
health, it is not less certain that they were intensely solicitous for
that of their poor and friendless neighbours. The peculiar constitution
of the Roman Empire, which was but a military tyranny, greatly
contributed to its fall, and the collapse would have come earlier had
it not been for Christianity. The Empire had very little cohesion; the
Church had a cohesive force, such as the world had never experienced
before, and the Church availed herself of all the facilities which
the Empire possessed of keeping up, from centre to circumference, the
circulation of the spirit of solidarity which has ever animated the
Catholic body. Of course there was little reason to expect the Church
to be very favourably disposed towards the philosophies of old Greece
and Rome; they had done little for the moral and social welfare of the
people, and the Church had a better system than these could exhibit:
but when St Augustine appeared, there was found a _modus vivendi_
between the noblest Platonism and the purest and loftiest Christian
theology. He pointed the way towards a Christian science, and Europe
ultimately realized it. It was found in the Schoolmen. Modern science
is the legitimate child of Scholasticism, though it is unsparing in its
abuse of its parent.

The slave to the ancient Roman was simply a beast who was able to
speak. When such beasts became unprofitable, because through sickness
or old age they could no longer work, they were frequently turned out
to perish. Cato advised the agriculturists to sell their old and sick
slaves when no longer able to work, just as he recommended them to
dispose of worn-out and diseased cattle and worthless implements of
husbandry.[523]

The Emperor Claudius caused slaves who were thus cruelly treated to
be proclaimed freemen. It was the merciful and charitable conduct of
the early Christians towards slaves, of whom such vast numbers helped
to people the Roman Empire, that caused the doctrines of the Gospel
to spread so rapidly throughout the Roman world. The slave found in
the Gospel of Christ the first system of religion and philosophy which
took any account of the poor, the helpless, and the slave; the rich and
cultured saw in the teachings of the Church of Christ the only system
which embraced mankind as a whole. Juvenal[524] has indicated for us
the value of a slave’s life in these times.

    “Go, crucify that slave. For what offence?
    Who the accuser? Where the evidence?
    For when the life of man is in debate,
    No time can be too long, no care too great.
    Hear all, weigh all with caution, I advise.
    ‘Thou sniveller! is a slave a man?’ she cries.
    ‘He’s innocent! be’t so; ’tis my command,
    My will; let that, sir, for a reason stand.’”

Although there is evidence that hospitals for the reception and
treatment of sick and destitute persons were established in India in
very early times,[525] and though we know that these were attached to
some of the temples of ancient Greece, and the Romans had convalescent
institutions for sick slaves and soldiers, it cannot be doubted that we
owe to Christianity the hospital as it exists amongst us at the present
day.

Christianity taught the world not only that God is the Father of
mankind, the pagan world already knew Him as Zeus pater, but that as
His children we are the brethren and sisters of each other. The Church
in Rome, in the third century, says Eusebius,[526] supported “widows
and impotent persons, about a thousand and fifty souls who were all
relieved through the grace and goodness of Almighty God.” St. Basil the
Great (A.D. 379) founded at Cæsarea a vast hospital, which Nazianzen
calls a new city, and was named after him Basiliades. The same author
thought “it might deservedly be reckoned among the miracles of the
world, so numerous were the poor and sick that came thither, and so
admirable was the care and order with which they were served.”[527]
In this institution St. Gregory of Nazianzus said, “disease became a
school of wisdom, and misery was changed into happiness.”

Chastel relates that (A.D. 375) Edessa possessed a hospital with 300
beds, and there were many similar institutions in the East. St. Jerome
says that the widow Fabiola founded the first Christian infirmary in
Rome, at the end of the fourth century. St. Paula, a Roman widow, in
whose veins ran the blood of the Scipios, the Gracchi, and Paulus
Æmilia, and of Agamemnon, was born in 347 A.D., and was one of the
many noble Christian women who devoted their wealth and their lives
to the poor, the suffering, and the helpless, in the early days of
Christianity. She distributed immense alms, and built a hospital on
the road to Jerusalem, and also a monastery for St. Jerome and his
monks, whom she maintained, besides three monasteries for women;[528]
she carried the sick to their beds in her arms, and with her own hands
washed their wounds, as St. Jerome tells us. In Italy, Gaul, and Spain,
many asylums for sick and poor persons were built and maintained. Nor
were their benefits confined to Christians; for Jews, slaves, and
freemen were welcomed to these temples of charity. It is impossible in
the limits of this work to trace fully the progress of the hospital
movement; enough has been said to prove, as Baas, the Agnostic
historian of medicine, admits,[529] that “Hospitals proper, in our
sense of the term, did not originate till Christian times.”

When the plague raged at Alexandria, Eusebius tells us,[530] “Many
of our brethren, by reason of their great love and brotherly charity,
sparing not themselves, cleaved one to another, visited the sick
without weariness or heed-taking, and attended upon them diligently,
cured them in Christ, which cost them their lives, and being full of
other men’s maladies, took the infection of their neighbours.” Such was
the initial impulse which Christian charity applied to the healing art;
trace we now its splendid results in mediæval times.

In the Middle Ages almost all the monasteries and religious houses
had a hospital of one kind or another attached to them; they had not
only places of entertainment for pilgrims, but institutions for the
treatment and care of the sick and poor. This care of the diseased
and helpless was not left to the civil administration alone, but
formed part of the regular work of the Church of the middle ages,
and by ancient regulation this was placed under the control of the
Bishops. The Council of Vienne ordained that if the administrators of
a hospital, lay or clerical, became relaxed in the exercise of their
charge, proceedings should be taken against them by the Bishops, who
should reform and restore the hospital of their own authority.

The Council of Trent granted to Bishops the power of visiting the
hospitals. This connection between the hospitals and the ecclesiastical
power was acknowledged by the Christian sovereigns of Europe from the
earliest times. The Emperor Justinian, for example, gave authority
over the hospitals to the Bishops; the property of the hospitals was
considered as Church property, and thus was protected in troublous
times by the sanctity of religion.[531]

The Council of Chalcedon placed such clergy as lived in establishments
where orphans, the aged, and infirm were received and cared for under
the authority of the Bishops, and makes use of the expression that this
regulation was according to ancient custom.

In the time of the Council of Chalcedon a hospital (ξενοδοχεῖον) seems
to have been a common adjunct of a church.[532] Originally appropriated
to the reception of strangers, its use was afterwards extended to the
relief of the poor and also of the sick, as at Alexandria, where, in
A.D. 399, we read that “the priest Isidore being four-score years old,
was at that time governor of the hospital.”[533]

In connection with the story of Hypatia at Alexandria, we learn that
the Parabolani was the name given to the clergy of the lowest order,
who were appointed to attend to the sick, particularly in contagious
disorders, from which circumstance, says Fleury,[534] their name was
derived, because it signifies persons who expose themselves.

MOSCHION DIORTHORTES (about the 6th cent.) was a specialist in diseases
of women. He wrote a manual for midwives based on the work of Soranus.
His description of the uterus is similar to the treatise of that
physician. He refutes the opinion of the ancients on the situation of
male infants on the right, and of females on the left. He has well
indicated the signs of imminent abortion. He made a great number of
observations on the physical education of children which must have been
of great importance to his time. He justly explained the reason for the
cessation of the catamenia after severe diseases: the system cannot
afford the waste. He anticipated the modern discovery that sterility is
a disease common to women and men. He adhered to the principles of the
Methodical school, and the doctrines of _strictum_ and _laxum_.[535]

PAULUS ÆGINETA, one of the most famous of the Greek writers on
medicine, was born in the island of Ægina, probably in the latter
half of the seventh century after Christ. He was an Iatrosophist,
and a Periodeutes, or one who travelled about in the exercise of his
profession. He wrote several books on medicine, of which one has
come down to us, called _De re Medica Libri Septem_, or “Synopsis of
Medicine in seven books.” Dr. Adams, in his translation of this famous
work for the Sydenham Society, gives us the original introduction to
the treatises of this physician, who informs us that:—

“In the first book you will find everything that relates to hygiene,
and to the preservation from, and correction of, distempers peculiar
to the various ages, seasons, temperaments, and so forth; also the
powers and use of the different articles of food, as is set forth
in the chapter of contents. In the second is explained the whole
doctrine of fevers, an account of certain matters relating to them
being premised, such as excrementitious discharges, critical days,
and other appearances, and concluding with certain symptoms which
are the concomitants of fevers. The third book relates to topical
affections, beginning from the crown of the head, and descending down
to the nails of the feet. The fourth book treats of those complaints
which are external and exposed to view, and are not limited to one
part of the body, but affect various parts. Also, of intestinal worms
and dracunculi. The fifth treats of the wounds and bites of venomous
animals; also of the distemper called hydrophobia, and of persons
bitten by dogs which are mad, and by those which are not mad; and
also of persons bitten by men. Afterwards it treats of deleterious
substances, and of the preservatives from them. In the sixth book
is contained everything relating to surgery, both what relates to
the fleshy parts, such as the extraction of weapons, and to the
bones, which comprehends fractures and dislocations. In the seventh
is contained an account of the properties of all medicines, first
of the simple, then of the compound, particularly of those which I
have mentioned in the preceding six books, and more especially the
greater, and as it were, celebrated preparations; for I did not think
it proper to treat of all these articles promiscuously, lest it should
occasion confusion, but so that any person looking for one or more of
the distinguished preparations might easily find it. Towards the end
are certain things connected with the composition of medicines, and
of those articles which may be substituted for one another, the whole
concluding with an account of weights and measures.”

The most valuable and interesting part of this work is the sixth book.
The whole treatise is chiefly a compilation from the great physicians
who preceded Paulus, but the sixth book contains some original matter.

This great Byzantine physician must have possessed considerable skill
in surgery. His famous treatise on midwifery is now lost; it procured
for him amongst the Arabs the title of “the Obstetrician,” and entitles
him to be called the first of the teachers of the accoucheur’s art.
Celebrated equally in the Arabian and Western schools, he exercised an
enormous influence in the development of the medical arts. Throughout
the Middle Ages he maintained his great popularity, and his surgical
teaching was the basis of that of Abulcasis, which afforded to Europe
in the Middle Ages her best surgical knowledge. He was the first writer
who took notice of the cathartic properties of rhubarb.[536]

After the time of Paulus of Ægina the art of surgery slept for five
hundred years; imitators of the ancient masters and compilers of their
works alone remained to prove that it was still alive, but no progress
was made. The religious orders employed the best methods they knew
for the relief of physical suffering, but naturally it was not their
work to perfect the healing art. In the Middle Ages, when so much
of the medical and surgical practice was in the hands of the monks,
particularly of the Benedictine order, many abuses crept in; and at
last the practice of surgery by the clergy was forbidden in 1163 by the
Council of Tours.

The office of royal physician in the Frankish court in the sixth
century was not unattended with risk. When Austrigildis, wife of King
Guntram, died of the pestilence in the year 580, she expressed in her
last moments a pious desire that her doctors, Nicolaus and Donatus,
should be put to death for not having saved her; and her husband,
feeling it incumbent upon him to carry out her wishes, had them duly
executed.[537]


ANCIENT SURGICAL INSTRUMENTS.

Bramhilla, surgeon to Francis II. of Austria, said that surgical
instruments were invented by Tubal Cain, because the Bible says he was
“the instructor of every artificer in brass and iron.”

The saw is a tool of great antiquity. Pliny attributes its invention
to Dædalus, or to his nephew Perdix, who was also called Talos; he was
supposed to have imitated it from the jaw of a serpent, with which he
had been able to cut a piece of wood. The invention of forceps was
attributed to Vulcan and the Cyclopes. When used for extracting teeth,
the Greeks called them ὀδοντάγρα; for extracting arrow-heads and other
weapons from the wounded in battle, the particular form employed was
called ἀρδιοθήρα.

In the collection of domestic objects discovered by M. Petrie in the
Egyptian ruins of Kahun, flint saws close upon 5,000 years old may be
seen.[538]

Pincers and tweezers are made by the natives of Timor-laut from the
bamboo; they are used for pulling out the hair from the face. The
natives of the Darling River, New South Wales, use fine bone needles
for boring through the septum of the nose.

The book on _Wounds of the Head_ is admitted by the best critics to
be a genuine work of Hippocrates. We find in that treatise that he
used the trepan, as he speaks of a σμικρὸν τρύπανον, a _small trepan_.
There must also have been a larger one, a πρίων, or _saw_, which had a
περίοδος, or _circular_ motion, and which was probably the trephine,
and a πρίων χαρακτός, or _jagged saw_, which is held to be the
_trepan_; and he gives instructions to the operator to withdraw the
instrument frequently and cool both it and the bone with cold water,
and to exercise all vigilance not to wound the living membrane.[539]

Splints were used by the Greeks for fractured limbs; they were called
νάρθηκας. Cutting for the stone is spoken of in the Ὅρκος, which is
attributed to Hippocrates. Celsus describes lithotrity, or crushing
the stone by the instrument invented by Ammonios the λιθοτόμος, _i.e._
lithotomist.

Asclepiades practised tracheotomy. Many surgical instruments have been
discovered in Herculaneum and Pompeii. There is a speculum vaginæ with
two branches and a travelling yoke for them driven by a screw, and a
speculum ani opening by pressure on the handles; there is a forceps of
curious construction for removing pieces of bone from the surface of
the brain in cases of fracture of the skull. Mr. Cockayne says:[540]—

“It has been specially considered by Prof. Benedetto Vulpes [1847], who
thinks it may also have been intended to take up an artery. The Greeks,
he observes, as appears by an inscription dug up near Athens, were
able to tie an artery in order to stop hæmorrhage, and words implying
so much are found in a treatise of Archigenes (A.D. 100), existing in
MS. in the Laurentian library at Florence, ‘_the vessels carrying_
(blood) _towards the incision must be tied or sewed up_.’ Near the end
of the sixteenth century a French surgeon was the first to recover the
ligature of the artery, and the instrument he used was very similar to
the forceps in the Museum at Naples.”

A curious pair of forceps has also been found, without a parallel among
modern surgical instruments; the blades have a half turn, and the grip
is toothed and spoon-shaped when closed. By construction it is suited
for introduction into some internal cavity, and for holding firm and
fast some excrescence there. Professor Vulpes finds it well calculated
for dealing with the excrescences which grow upon the Schneiderian
membrane covering the nasal bones, or such as come on the periphery
of the anus, or the orifice of the female urethra; especially such as
having a large base cannot be tied.[541]

There is further an instrument for tapping the dropsical, described by
Celsus[542] and Paulus Ægineta. It was somewhat altered in the middle
of the seventeenth century by Petit.

An instrument suited to carry off the dropsical humours by a little at
a time on successive days, as Celsus and Paulus Ægineta recommended,
has also been dug up. Rust and hard earth, which cannot safely
be removed, have blocked up the canal of the relic, and rendered
conclusions less certain.[543]

“The probe, ‘specillum,’ μήλη, is reputed by Cicero to have been
invented by the Arcadian Apollo, who also was the first to bind up a
wound. Seven varieties are figured in the work of Professor Vulpes in
one plate, with ends obtuse, spoon-shaped, flat and oval, flat and
square, flat and divided. The catheter of the ancients is figured by
the same writer. It was furnished with a bit of wood to be drawn out by
a thread, to prevent the obstructive effects of capillary attraction,
and to fetch the urine after it when withdrawn. It is of bronze, and
elastic catheters seem to be of modern invention.” There are, or were
in 1847, eighty-nine specimens of pincers in the Naples Museum.

Hooks, hamuli, cauterising instruments, a spatula, a silver lancet, a
small spoon for examining a small quantity of blood after venesection.
There are cupping vessels of a somewhat spherical shape, from which air
was exhausted by burning a little tow. A fleam for bleeding horses just
like that used at the present time, a bent lever of steel for raising
the bones of the head in cases of depressed fracture. Professor Vulpes
gives figures of eight steel or iron knives used for various surgical
purposes, and of a small plate to be used as an actual cautery.

[Illustration: ANCIENT SURGICAL INSTRUMENTS.

 Fig. 1. The Saw used by Carpenters. Fig. 2. A Small Saw. Fig. 3. The
 Modiolus, _or_ Ancient Trephine. Fig. 4. The Terebra, _or_ Trepan,
 called Abaptiston. Fig. 5. The Augur used by Carpenters. Fig. 6. The
 Terebra, _or_ Trepan, which is turned round by a thong bound tight
 about its middle. Fig. 7. The Augur, _or_ Trepan, which is turned
 round by a bow. Fig. 8. A Terebra, _or_ Trepan, which is turned round
 by a thong on a cross-beam. Fig. 9. A Terebra, _or_ Trepan, which
 has a ball in its upper end, by which it is turned round. Fig. 10. A
 Terebra, _or_ Trepan, which is turned round by a cross piece of wood,
 or handle, on its upper end. (From Adams’ _Hippocrates_, vol. i.)
                                                        [_Face p._ 246.]




CHAPTER VI.

AMULETS AND CHARMS IN MEDICINE.

 Universality of the Amulet.—Scarabs.—Beads.—Savage Amulets.—Gnostic
 and Christian Amulets.—Herbs and Animals as Charms.—Knots.—Precious
 Stones.—Signatures.—Numbers.—Saliva.—Talismans.—Scripts.—Characts.
 —Sacred Names.—Stolen Goods.


In the ancient world, as with savages, the whole art of medicine was in
many cases the art of preparing and applying amulets and charms.

An amulet (probably the word is derived from the Arabic _hamalet_, a
pendant) is anything which is hung round the neck or attached to any
other part of the body, and worn as an imagined protection against
disease, witchcraft, accidents, or other evils. Stones, metals, bits of
parchment, portions of the human body, as parings of the finger nails,
may constitute these charms. Substances like stones, gems, or parchment
may have certain words, letters, or signs inscribed upon them. In the
East amulets have from the earliest ages been associated with the
belief in evil spirits as the causes of diseases. A talisman may for
our purpose be considered as the same thing as an amulet. In Scott’s
_Tales of the Crusaders_, there is one of these charms which has the
power of stopping blood and protecting the wearer from hydrophobia.
Charms, enchantments, the ceremonial use of words as incantations,
songs, verses, etc., have all been used either with a view of causing,
preventing, or curing diseases, and their use of course arose from
the belief of primitive, or savage man his present representative,
that our maladies have a supernatural origin. An amulet may consist
merely of a piece of string tied like a bracelet round the wrist, as
in India, where such a charm is commonly worn by school children; it
is a talisman against fever, which has been blessed by a Brahman, has
been sold for a half-rupee, and is highly esteemed by the wearer. Our
word carminative (a comforting medicine, like tincture of cardamoms)
means really a charm medicine, and is derived from the Latin _carmen_,
a song-charm. This word enshrines the fact that magic and medicine were
once united. The charm, _i.e._ song, was a spell, whether of words,
philtres, or figures, as thus:—

    “With the charmes that she saide,
    A fire down fro’ the sky alight.”
                                                              —_Gower._

Charms, amulets, characts, talismans, and the like, are found amongst
all peoples and in all times. They unite in one bond of superstitious
brotherhood the savage and the philosopher, the Sumatrans and the
Egyptians, the Malay and the Jew, the Catholic and the Protestant. The
charm differs from the amulet merely in the fact that it need not be
suspended. “There is scarcely a disease,” says Pettigrew, “for which
a charm has not been given.”[544] And it is well to note that their
greatest effect is always produced on disorders of the nervous system,
in which the imagination plays so important a part. Charms are also
used to avert diseases and other evils; so that the man, sufficiently
protected as he supposes by these objects, not only will escape
plague and pestilence, but will be invulnerable to bullet and sword.
The Sumatrans practise medicine chiefly by charms; when called in to
prescribe, they generally ask for “something on account,” under the
pretext of purchasing the appropriate charm.[545]

The hoof of the elk is used by the Indians and Norwegians and other
northern nations as a cure for epilepsy. The patient must apply it to
his heart, hold it in his left hand, and rub his ear with it.[546]

“Medicine” amongst primitive folk is a synonym for fetich; anything
wonderful, mysterious, or unaccountable, is called “medicine” by the
North American Indians. The medicine-bag is a mystery bag, a charm.
In fetiches primitive man recognises something which has a power of
a sort he cannot understand straightway; therefore it becomes to him
a religious object. “Why are any herbs or roots magical?” asks Mr.
Lang; and he correctly answers the question, not by any far-fetched
explanations, but by the observation that herbs really do possess
medicinal properties (some of them indeed of extreme potency), and
the ignorant invariably confound medicine with magic.[547] On this
theory it is, of course, not necessary to swallow the medicine or
apply it as we apply lotions and liniments; it is enough to carry it
about as an amulet or charm, for it is the _life_ of the thing which
is efficacious, the _spirit_, which resides in the outward form, which
possesses the virtue, not the material object itself. Of course, it
may be necessary to take the charm internally; but then it is not the
physiological action which is looked for, but the magical. Dapper, in
his _Description of Africa_ (p. 621), tells of savages who wear roots
round their necks as amulets when they sleep out; they chew the roots,
and spit the juice round the camp to keep off the wild beasts. At
other times they burn the roots, and blow the smoke about for the same
purpose. The Korannas carry roots as charms against bullets and wild
animals. If successful in war, and obtaining much booty, they say, “We
thank thee, our grandfather’s root, that thou hast given us cattle to
eat.”

The Bongoes and Niam-Niams have similar customs.[548]

General Forlong, referring to the serpent Buddhism of Kambodia, says,
that “Fetish worship was the first worship, and to a great extent is
still the _real_ faith of the great mass of the ignorant, especially
about these parts.”[549] “Probably one-quarter of the world yet
deifies, or at least reverences, sticks and stones, ram-horns and
charms.”[550]

The Abyssinians are sunk in the grossest superstition; their medical
practice is, to a large extent, based on the use of amulets and charms.
Even leprosy and syphilis are treated by these means, and eye diseases
by spitting in the affected organs.[551]

“Fetiches” are claws, fangs, roots, or stones, which the Africans
believe to be inhabited by spirits, and so powerful for good or evil.
The word is derived from the Portuguese _feitiço_, a charm or amulet.

The Tibetans wear amulets upon their necks and arms; they contain
nail-parings, teeth, or other reliques of some sainted Lama, with musk,
written prayers, and other charms.[552]

Barth, travelling in Africa, found an English letter which had not
reached its destination, used as a charm by a native.[553]

Leaving primitive folk and savage peoples, and turning to the great
civilized nations of the past, we find the Egyptians, the Chaldæans,
Assyrians, and Babylonians not less addicted to the use of amulets,
charms, talismans, and philters than their untutored progenitors
(assuming with the anthropologists that the savage of to-day
represents the primitive people who must have preceded the founders of
civilization). The Magi, according to Pliny,[554] prescribed the herb
feverfew, the _Pyrethrum parthenium_, to be pulled from the ground with
the left hand, that the fevered patient’s name must be spoken forth,
and that the herborist must not look behind him. He tells us also
that the Magi and the Pythagoreans ordered the _pseudo-anchusa_ to be
gathered with the left hand, while the plucker uttered the name of the
person to be cured, and that it should be tied on him for the tertian
fever.[555]

Of the _aglaophotis_, by which some commentators understand the peony
(_Pæonia officinalis_), and others the “Moly” of Homer, Pliny says,
“by means of this plant, the Magi can summon the deities into their
presence when they please.” Concerning the _achæmenis_, he says the
root of it, according to the Magian belief as expressed by Democritus,
when taken in wine, torments the guilty to such a degree during the
night, by the various forms of avenging deities, as to extort from
them a confession of their crimes. He tells, amongst other marvels,
of the adamantis, a plant found in Armenia, which, when presented to
a lion, will make the beast fall upon its back and drop its jaws.
The Magi said if any one swallowed the heart of a mole palpitating
and fresh, he would at once become an expert diviner. An owl’s heart
placed on a woman’s left breast while she is asleep will make her tell
all her secrets. For quartan fevers they recommended a kind of beetle
taken up with the left hand to be worn as an amulet.[556] The use of
scarabs or beetles made of steatite, lapis-lazuli, cornelian, etc.,
as amulets, dates from the most ancient periods of Egyptian history.
In the fourth Egyptian room of the British Museum there are specimens
of scarabs, with the names of kings and queens dating B.C. 4400-250.
The objects are not in all cases as old as the dates of the sovereigns
whose names they bear. “The beetle was an emblem of the god Khepera,
the self-created, and the origin and source from whence sprang gods
and men. Rā, the Sun-god, who rose again daily, was, according to
an Egyptian myth, a form of Khepera; and the burial of scarabs with
mummies probably had reference to the resurrection of the dead.”[557]

Some large scarabs which were fastened on the breasts of mummies had
inscriptions from the 30th chapter of the _Book of the Dead_. The
deceased person prays: “Let there be no obstruction to me in evidence;
let there be no obstacle on the part of the Powers; let there be no
repulse in the presence of the Guardian of the Scale.” Other amulets
consist of papyrus sceptres, buckles of Isis, hearts, fingers, etc., in
gold and precious stones. They are laid between the bandages of mummies
to guard the dead from evil.

Professor Lenormant explains the magical incantations which were used
in connection with these talismans; they had to be “pronounced over the
beetle of hard stone, which is to be overlaid with gold and to take the
place of the individual’s heart. Make a phylactery of it anointed with
oil, and say magically over this object, ‘My heart is my mother; my
heart is in my transformations.’”[558]

The ancient Egyptians were buried with their amulets as a protection
against the evil powers of the other world. Mr. Flinders Petrie,
excavating at the Pyramid of Hawara, discovered on the body of Horuta a
great number of these charms. He says: “Bit by bit the layers of pitch
and cloth were loosened, and row after row of magnificent amulets were
disclosed, just as they were laid on in the distant past. The gold ring
on the finger which bore his name and titles, the exquisitely inlaid
gold birds, the chased gold figures, the lazuli statuettes, delicately
wrought, the polished lazuli and beryl, and carnelian amulets finely
engraved, all the wealth of talismanic armoury, rewarded our eyes with
a sight which has never been surpassed to archæological gaze. No such
complete and rich a series of amulets has been seen intact before.”[559]

Anodyne necklaces, made of beads from peony roots, are worn by children
in some parts to assist them in teething. The ancient Greeks held the
peony in great repute; they believed it to be of divine origin, and
it was for many centuries held to have the power to drive away evil
spirits.[560]

Abydemis, a Greek historian who wrote a history of Assyria, says that
the inhabitants made amulets from the wood of the ash, and hung them
round their necks as a charm against sorcery.

In the Sanskrit Atharvaveda are found charms for diseases, which are
influenced by colours. Saffron and the yellow-hammer are prescribed for
jaundice; red remedies, and especially red cows, for blood diseases.

The extremity of the intestine of the ossifrage, says Pliny, if worn as
an amulet, is well known to be an excellent remedy for colic. Another
cure is for the patient to drink the water in which he has washed his
feet![561] A tick from a dog’s left ear, worn as an amulet, will allay
all kinds of pains, but we must be careful to take it from a dog that
is black.[562]

“Pliny says that any plant gathered from the bank of a brook or river
before sunrise, provided that no one sees the person who gathers it, is
considered as a remedy for tertian ague, when tied to the left arm, the
patient not knowing what it is; also, that a person may be immediately
cured of the headache by the application of any plant which has grown
on the head of a statue, provided it be folded in the shred of a
garment, and tied to the part affected with a red string.”[563]

The cyclamen was cultivated in houses as a protection against poison.
Pliny remarks that it was an amulet.[564] Vivisection was practised in
connection with charms. “If a man have a white spot, as cataract, in
his eye, catch a fox alive, cut his tongue out, let him go, dry his
tongue and tie it up in a red rag and hang it round the man’s neck.”

Alexander Trallianus was not able to rise above the absurdities of the
amulet. He recommends bits of old sailcloth from a shipwrecked vessel
to be tied to the right arm and worn for seven weeks as a protection
against epilepsy. He advises the heart of a lark to be fastened to the
left thigh as a remedy for colic; for a quartan ague, the patient must
carry about some hairs from a goat’s chin. He admits that he has no
faith in such things, but merely orders them as placebos for rich and
fastidious patients who could not be persuaded to adopt a more rational
treatment.[565]

Dr. Baas tells us that “a regular pagan amulet was found in 1749 on
the breast of the prince bishop Anselm Franz of Würzburg, count of
Ingolstadt, after his death.”[566]


GNOSTIC AND CHRISTIAN AMULETS.

Gnosticism is responsible for the introduction of many wonder-working
amulets and charms. This system of philosophy was a fantastical
combination of Orientalism, Greek philosophy, and Christianity. The
teaching was that all natures were emanations of the Deity, or _Œons_.
On some of the gnostic amulets the word _Mythras_ was inscribed, on
others _Serapis_, _Iao_, _Sabaoth_, _Adonai_, etc.

Notwithstanding the fact that the spirit of Christianity in its
early days was strenuously opposed to all magical and superstitious
practices, the nations it subdued to the faith of Christ were so wedded
to their ancient practices that they could not be entirely divorced
from them, and thus in the case of amulets and charms it was necessary
to substitute Christian words and emblems in place of the heathen words
and symbols previously in use.

Anglo-Saxon charms and amulets were used by the monks of Glastonbury
Abbey, who treated disease. In the “Leech book”[567] we find a holy
amulet “against every evil rune lay,[568] and one full of elvish
tricks, writ _for the bewitched man_, this writing in Greek letters:
Alfa, Omega, IESVM, BERONIKH. Again, another dust and drink against a
rune lay; take a bramble apple,[569] and lupins, and pulegium, pound
them, then sift them, put them in a pouch, lay them under the altar,
sing nine masses over them, put the dust into milk, drip thrice some
holy water upon them, administer _this_ to drink at three hours.... If
a mare[570] or hag ride a man, take lupins, and garlic, and betony, and
frankincense, bind them on a fawn skin, let a man have the worts on
him, and let him go into his house.” For typhus fever the patient is to
drink of a decoction of herbs over which many masses have been sung,
then say the names of the four gospellers and a charm and a prayer.
Again, a man is to write in silence a charm, and silently put the words
in his left breast and take care not to go indoors with the writing
upon him, the words being EMMANUEL, VERONICA.

Mr. Cockayne, the editor of _Saxon Leechdoms_, has pointed out that the
greatest scientific men of antiquity, even those who set themselves
against the prevailing medical superstitions of their times, and did
their utmost to establish observation and experiment in opposition to
speculation and old wives’ fables, were by no means liberated from a
belief in magic and incantations. Chrysippus believed in amulets for
quartan fevers.[571] Serapion, one of the chiefs of the Empiric school,
prescribed crocodile’s dung and turtle’s blood in epilepsy. Soranos
will not use incantations in the cure of diseases, yet he testifies
that they were so employed. Pliny has an amulet for almost every
disorder. He tells of a chief man in Spain who was cured of a disease
by hanging purslane root round his neck; he teaches that an amulet of
the seed of tribulus cures varicose veins; that the longest tooth of a
black dog cures quartan fevers; or you may carry a wasp in your left
hand or half a dozen other equally absurd things for the same purpose.
A holly planted in the courtyard of a house keeps off witchcrafts; an
herb picked from the head of a statue and tied with a red thread will
cure headache, and so on.[572]

Josephus tells a tale which was probably the foundation of what was
afterwards told about the mandrake. Xenocrates had a fancy for advising
people to eat human brains, flesh or liver, or to swallow for various
complaints the ground bones of parts of the human frame. Alexander of
Tralles says that even Galen did homage to incantations.[573] He gives
his words: “Some think that incantations are like old wives’ tales;
as I did for a long while. But at last I was convinced that there is
virtue in them by plain proofs before my eyes. For I had trial of
their beneficial operations in the case of those scorpion-stung, nor
less in the case of bones stuck fast in the throat, immediately, by
an incantation thrown up. And many of them are excellent, severally,
and they reach their mark.” Yet Galen is angry with Pamphilos for “his
babbling incantations,” which were “not merely useless, not merely
unprofessional, but all false: no good even to little boys, not to say
students of medicine.”[574]

Alexander of Tralles frequently prescribes amulets and the like. Mr.
Cockayne calls them periapts. “Thus for colic, he guarantees by his
own experience, and the approval of almost all the best doctors, dung
of a wolf, with bits of bone in it if possible, shut up in a pipe, and
worn during the paroxysm, on the right arm, or thigh, or hip, taking
care it touches neither the earth nor a bath. A lark eaten is good. The
Thracians pick out its heart, while alive, and make a periapt, wearing
it on the left thigh. A part of the cæcum of a pig prepared with myrrh,
and put in a wolf’s or dog’s skin, is a good thing to wear. A ring with
Hercules strangling a lion on the Median stone[575] is good to wear.

“A bit of a child’s navel, shut up in something of gold or silver
with salt, is a periapt which will make the patient at ease entirely.
Have the setting of an iron ring octagonal, and engrave upon it,
‘Flee, Flee, Ho, Ho, Bile, the lark was searching’; on the head of the
ring have an N[576] engraved; this is potent, and he thinks it must
be strange not to communicate so powerful an antidote, but begs it
may be reserved from carnal folk, and told only to such as can keep
secrets and are trusty. For the gout he recommends a certain cloth—ἐκ
τῶν καταμηνίων; also the sinews of a vulture’s leg and toes tied on,
minding that the right goes to the right, the left to the left; also
the astragali of a hare, leaving the poor creature alive; also the
skin of a seal for soles; also a line of Homer, τετρήχει δ'ἀγορή, ὑπὸ
δὲ στοναχίζετο γαῖα, on gold-leaf, when the moon is in Libra; also a
natural magnet found when the moon is in Leo. Write on gold-leaf, in
the wane of the moon, ‘mei, threu, mor, for, teux, za, zon, the, lou,
chri, ge, ze, ou, as the sun is consolidated in these names, and is
renewed every day; so consolidate this plaster as it was before, now,
now, quick, quick, for, behold, I pronounce the great name, in which
are consolidated things in repose, iaz, azuf, zuon, threux, bain,
chook; consolidate this plaster as it was at first, now, now, quick,
quick.’[577]

“Then bits were to be chopped off a chameleon, and the creature living
was to be wrapped up in a clean linen rag, and buried towards the
sunrise, while the chopped bits were to be worn in tubes; all to be
done when the moon was in the wane. Then again for gout, some henbane,
when the moon is in Aquarius or Pisces, before sunset, must be dug up
with the thumb and third finger of the left hand, and must be said, I
declare, I declare, holy wort, to thee; I invite thee to-morrow to the
house of Fileas, to stop the rheum of the feet of M. or N., and say I
invoke thee, the great name, Jehovah, Sabaoth, the God who steadied the
earth and stayed the sea, the filler of flowing rivers, who dried up
Lot’s wife and made her a pillar of salt, take the breath of thy mother
earth and her power, and dry the rheum of the feet or hands of M. or N.
The next day, before sunrise, take a bone of some dead animal, and dig
the root up with this bone, and say, I invoke thee by the holy names,
Iao, Sabaoth, Adonai, Elai; and put on the root one handful of salt,
saying, ‘As this salt will not increase, so may not the disorder of
N. or M.’ And hang the end of the root as a periapt on the sufferer,”
etc.[578]

Although Alexander of Tralles was an enlightened and skilful physician,
he recommended for epilepsy a metal cross tied to the arm; and went to
the Magi for assistance in his art, and was recommended to use jasper
and coral with root of nux vomica tied in a linen cloth as an amulet.
It seems strange that, although Hippocrates and the scepticism of the
Epicureans had apparently destroyed the faith in magicians amongst the
learned, that men should have so soon reverted to the absurdities from
which they had been delivered; but there is an element in our nature
which can only be satisfied by that which magic represents, and even in
the present age of science we have reverted to the same things under
the names of Spiritualism, Theosophy, and Occultism.

It would be grossly unfair to the Catholic Church to complain of
the slavery in which it kept the minds of the ignorant barbarians
whom it had converted from paganism to Christianity. When we read of
medicine masses, of herbs and decoctions placed under the altar, of
holy water mixed with drugs, and the sign of the cross made over the
poultices and lotions prescribed, we are apt to say that the priests
merely substituted one form of superstition for another, which was a
little coarser. A little reflection will serve to dispel this idea. A
belief in magic influence is, as we have abundantly shown, inseparable
from the minds of primitive and savage man. It is as certain that
a savage will worship his fetish, pray to his idol, and believe in
disease-demons, and their expulsion by charms and talismans, as that
he will tattoo or paint his body, stick feathers in his hair, and
rings in his nose and ears; it is part of the evolution of man on his
way to civilization. To suddenly deprive a savage or barbarian of
all his magic remedies, his amulets and charms, would be as foolish
as it would be futile: foolish, because many amulets and charms are
perfectly harmless, and help to quiet and soothe the patient’s mind;
futile, because whatever the ecclesiastical prohibition, the obnoxious
ceremonies would certainly be practised in secret. It was therefore
wiser for the Church to compromise the matter, to wink at innocent
superstitions, and endeavour to substitute a religious idea such as the
sign of the cross would imply, for the meaningless, if not idolatrous,
ceremonies of a pagan religion. Let us never forget that the Church
delivered the nations from “the tyranny and terror of the poisoner and
the wizard.”


HERBS, ANIMALS, ETC., AS AMULETS.

Burton, in his _Anatomy of Melancholy_, mentions several “amulets
and things to be borne about” as remedies for head-melancholy, such
as hypericon, or St. John’s wort, gathered on a Friday in the hour
of Jupiter, “borne or hung about the neck, it mightily helps this
affection, and drives away all fantastical spirits.” A sheep or kid’s
skin whom a wolf worried must not be worn about a man, because it is
apt to cause palpitation of the heart, “not for any fear, but a secret
virtue which amulets have.” “Peony doth cure epilepsy, precious stones
most diseases; a wolf’s dung borne with one helps the colic; a spider
an ague, etc. Being in the country,” he says, “in the vacation time,
not many years since, at Lindley, in Leicestershire, my father’s home,
I first observed this amulet of a spider in a nut-shell lapped in silk,
etc., so applied for an ague by my mother; whom, although I knew to
have excellent skill in chirurgery, sore eyes, aches, etc., and such
experimental medicines, as all the country where she dwelt can witness,
to have done many famous and good cures upon diverse poor folks that
were otherwise destitute of help; yet among all other experiments,
this, methought, was most absurd and ridiculous; I could see no warrant
for it—_Quid aranea cum febre?_ For what antipathy?—till at length
rambling amongst authors (as I often do), I found this very medicine in
Dioscorides, approved by Matthiolus, repeated by Alderovandus, _cap.
de aranea, lib. de insectis_, and began to have a better opinion of
it, and to give more credit to amulets, when I saw it in some parties
answer to experience.”[579]

The common fumitory (_Fumaria capreolata_) is said to derive its name
from _fumus_, smoke, “because the smoke of this plant was said by the
ancient exorcists to have the power of expelling evil spirits.”[580]

The elder had many singular virtues attributed to it; if a boy were
beaten with an elder stick, it hindered his growth; but an elder on
which the sun had never shined was an amulet against erysipelas.[581]


KNOTS AS CHARMS.

Marcellus, a medical writer, quoted by Mr. Cockayne in his preface
to _Saxon Leechdoms_, vol. i, p. xxix., gives an example of knots as
charms. “As soon as a man gets pain in his eyes, tie in unwrought flax
as many knots as there are letters in his name, pronouncing them as you
go, and tie it round his neck.”


PRECIOUS STONES AS CHARMS.

The origin of the superstitious belief in the magic power of precious
stones has always been traced to Chaldæa. Pliny[582] refers to a
book on the subject which was written by Lachalios, of Babylon, and
dedicated to Mithridates.

The Eagle stone (_Ætites_) is a natural concretion, a variety of
argillaceous oxide of iron, often hollow within, with a loose kernel
in the centre, found sometimes in an eagle’s nest. This was a famous
amulet, bringing love between a man and his wife; and if tied to the
left arm or side of a pregnant woman it ensured that she should not
be delivered before her time. Women in labour were supposed to be
quickly delivered if they were girded with the skin which a snake casts
off.[583]

The Bezoar stone had a great reputation in melancholic affections.
Manardus says it removes sadness and makes him merry that useth it.[584]

“Of the stone which hight agate. It is said that it hath eight virtues.
One is when there is thunder, it doth not scathe the man who hath this
stone with him. Another virtue is, on whatsoever house it is, therein
a fiend may not be. The third virtue is, that no venom may scathe the
man who hath the stone with him. The fourth virtue is, that the man,
who hath on him secretly the loathly fiend, if he taketh in liquid
any portion of the shavings of this stone, then soon is exhibited
manifestly in him, that which before lay secretly hid. The fifth virtue
is, he who is afflicted with any disease, if he taketh the stone in
liquid, it is soon well with him. The sixth virtue is, that sorcery
hurteth not the man who has the stone with him. The seventh virtue is,
that he who taketh the stone in drink, will have so much the smoother
body. The eighth virtue of the stone is, that no bite of any kind of
snake may scathe him who tasteth the stone in liquid.”[585]


SIGNATURES.

Colours have always had a medical significance, from their connection
with the doctrine of “signatures.” White was cooling; red was hot.
Red flowers were given in disorders of the blood; yellow in bile
disturbance. The bed-hangings in small-pox and scarlet-fever cases
were commonly of a red colour; the unhappy patient’s room was hung
about with red drapery. He had to drink infusions of red berries,
such as mulberries. Avicenna said that as red bodies move the blood
everything of a red colour is good for blood disorders.


NUMBERS.

Magic numbers as charms were in use in Anglo-Saxon medicine. “If any
thing to cause annoyance get into a man’s eye, with five fingers of the
same side as the eye, run the eye over and fumble at it, saying three
times, ‘tetunc resonco, bregan gresso,’ and spit thrice. For the same,
shut the vexed eye and say thrice, ‘in mon deromarcos axatison,’ and
spit thrice; this remedy is ‘mirificum.’ For the same, shut the other
eye, touch gently the vexed eye with the ring finger and thumb, and
say thrice, ‘I buss the gorgon’s mouth.’ This charm repeated thrice
nine times will draw a bone stuck in a man’s throat. For hordeolum,
which is a sore place in the eyelid of the shape of a barley-corn,
take nine grains of barley and with each poke the sore, with every
one saying the magic words, κυρια κυρια κασσαρια σουρωφβι; then throw
away the nine, and do the same with seven; throw away the seven, and
do the same with five, and so with three and one. For the same, take
nine grains of barley and poke the sore, and at every poke say, ‘φεῦγε,
φεῦγε κριθή σε διώκει, _flee, flee, barley thee chaseth_.’ For the
same, touch the sore with the medicinal or ring finger, and say thrice,
‘vigaria gasaria.’ To shorten the matter, blood may be stanched by the
words, ‘sicycuma, cucuma, ucuma, cuma, uma, ma, a.’ Also by ‘Stupid
on a mountain went, stupid, stupid was;’ by socnon socnon; σοκσοκαμ
συκιμα; by ψα ψε ψη ψε ψη ψα ψε. For toothache say, ‘Argidam margidam
sturgidam;’ also, spit in a frog’s mouth, and request him to make
off with the toothache. For a troublesome uvula catch a spider, say
suitable words, and make a phylactery of it. For a quinsy lay hold of
the throat with the thumb and the ring and middle fingers, cocking up
the other two, and tell it to be gone.”

Nine is the number consecrated by Buddhism, three is sacred among
Brahminical and Christian people. Pythagoras held that the unit or
monad is the principle and the end of all. One is a good principle.
Two, or the dyad, is the origin of contrasts and separation, and is an
evil principle. Three, or the triad, is the image of the attributes
of God. Four, or the tetrad, is the most perfect of numbers and the
root of all things. It is holy by nature. Five, or the pentad, is
everything; it stops the power of poisons, and is redoubted by evil
spirits. Six is a fortunate number. Seven is powerful for good or evil,
and is a sacred number. Eight is the first cube, so is man four-square
or perfect. Nine, as the multiple of three, is sacred. Ten, or the
decad, is the measure of all it contains, all the numeric relations and
harmonies.[586]

Cornelius Agrippa wrote on the power of numbers, which he declares
is asserted by nature herself; thus the herb called cinquefoil, or
five-leaved grass, resists poison, and bans devils by virtue of the
number five; one leaf of it taken in wine twice a day cures the
quotidian, three the tertian, four the quartan fever. He believed that
every seventh son born to parents who have not had daughters is able to
cure the king’s-evil by touch or word alone.[587]


GIRDLES.

Amongst the ancient Britons, says Meryon,[588] when a birth was
attended with difficulty or danger, girdles were put round the woman,
which were made for the purpose, and which gave her immediate relief.
Many families in the highlands of Scotland kept such girdles until
quite recently. They were marked with cabalistic figures, and were
applied with certain ceremonies, which came originally from the Druids.


SPITTLE.

Levinus Lemnius says of saliva: “Divers experiments show what power
and quality there is in man’s fasting spittle, when he hath neither
eat nor drunk before the use of it; for it cures all tetters, itch,
scabs, pushes, and creeping sores; and if venomous little beasts have
fastened on any part of the body, as hornets, beetles, toads, spiders,
and such like, that by their venome cause tumours and great pains and
inflammations; do but rub the places with fasting spittle, and all
those effects will be gone and dismissed.”[589]

Sir Thomas Browne is not quite sure that fasting saliva really is
poisonous to snakes and vipers.[590]

In _Saxon Leechdoms_ a cure for the gout runs thus: “Before getting out
of bed in the morning, spit on your hand, rub all your sinews, and say,
‘Flee, gout, flee, etc.’”[591]

Spittle was anciently a charm against all kinds of fascination. Pliny
says it averted witchcraft. Theocritus says,—

    “Thrice on my breast I spit, to guard me safe
    From fascinating charms.”

Fishermen and costermongers often spit on the first money they take,
for good luck.[592]


TALISMANS.

Talismans, says Fosbrooke,[593] are of five classes, 1. The
_Astronomical_, with celestial signs and intelligible characters.
2. The _Magical_, with extraordinary figures, superstitious words,
and names of unknown angels. 3. The _Mixed_, of celestial signs and
barbarous words, but not superstitions, or with names of angels. 4.
The _Sigilla Planetarum_, composed of Hebrew numeral letters, used by
astrologers and fortune tellers. 5. _Hebrew Names and Characters._
These were formed according to the cabalistic art. Pettigrew gives
a Hebrew talisman,[594] which runs thus: “It overflowed—he did cast
darts—Shaddai is all sufficient—his hand is strong, and is the
preserver of my life in all its variations.”


SCRIPTS.

Sir John Lubbock says that “The use of writing as a medicine prevails
largely in Africa, where the priests or wizards write a prayer on a
piece of board, wash it off, and make the patient drink it. Caillie
met with a man who had a great reputation for sanctity, and who made
his living by writing prayers on a board, washing them off, and then
selling the water, which was sprinkled over various objects and
supposed to protect them.”[595]

Mungo Park relates similar facts.[596]

Sir A. Lyall says that a similar practice exists in India, where,
however, the native practitioner may sometimes be seen mixing croton
oil in the ink with which he writes his charms. “In Africa,” says
Lubbock, “the prayers written as medicine or as amulets are generally
taken from the Koran.” It is admitted that they are no protection
against firearms; but this does not the least weaken faith in them,
because, as guns were not invented in Mahomet’s time, he naturally
provided no specific against them.[597]

Among the Kirghiz Atkinson says that the Mullas sell such amulets
at the rate of a sheep for each scrap of written paper,[598] and
similar charms are in great request among the Turkomans[599] and in
Afghanistan.[600]

The very curious account of the trial of jealousy in Numbers vi. 11-31
may be studied in this connection as showing the extreme antiquity
of the writing charm. In the case of the woman suspected of having
committed adultery “the priest shall bring her near, and set her before
the Lord: and the priest shall take holy water in an earthen vessel;
and of the dust that is in the floor of the tabernacle the priest shall
take, and put it into the water: and the priest shall set the woman
before the Lord, and uncover the woman’s head, and put the offering of
memorial in her hands, which is the jealousy offering: and the priest
shall have in his hand the bitter water that causeth the curse: and the
priest shall charge her by an oath, and say unto the woman, If no man
have lain with thee, and if thou hast not gone aside to uncleanness
with another instead of thy husband, be thou free from this bitter
water that causeth the curse: but if thou hast gone aside to another
instead of thy husband, and if thou be defiled, and some man have lain
with thee beside thine husband: then the priest shall charge the woman
with an oath of cursing, and the priest shall say unto the woman, The
Lord make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the Lord doth
make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell; and this water that
causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell,
and thy thigh to rot: and the woman shall say, Amen, amen. And the
priest shall write these curses in a book, and he shall blot them out
with the bitter water: and he shall cause the woman to drink the bitter
water that causeth the curse: and the water that causeth the curse
shall enter into her, and become bitter. Then the priest shall take the
jealousy offering out of the woman’s hand, and shall wave the offering
before the Lord, and offer it upon the altar: and the priest shall
take an handful of the offering, even the memorial thereof, and burn
it upon the altar, and afterward shall cause the woman to drink the
water. And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come
to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her
husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her,
and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot:
and the woman shall be a curse among her people. And if the woman be
not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive
seed. This is the law of jealousies, when a wife goeth aside to another
instead of her husband, and is defiled; or when the spirit of jealousy
cometh upon him, and he be jealous over his wife, and shall set the
woman before the Lord, and the priest shall execute upon her all this
law. Then shall the man be guiltless from iniquity, and this woman
shall bear her iniquity.”

This is quite evidently taken from the customs of African tribes. As
the Egyptians gave the Jews their knowledge of the medical arts, and as
this knowledge was doubtless largely intermingled with African ideas,
it is easy to see how the ordeal of the bitter curse-water found its
way into the Mosaic ritual.

Of scripts as amulets we find that anything written in a character
which nobody could read was worn as an amulet against disease or
danger. Thus the Anglo-Saxon MS., known as the Vercelli MS., by some
means found its way to a place near Milan, where no one could decipher
it. When that discovery was made, the next step was to cut up its
precious pages for amulets, and so many of its leaves have perished.

After the death of Pascal, the philosopher, a writing was found sewn
into his doublet. This was a “profession of faith” which he wore as a
sort of amulet or charm, and his servants believed that he always had
it stitched into a new garment when he discarded the old one.[601]

“Mais ce qui montre que ce n’est par un simple engagement tel qu’on
en peut prendre avec soi-même, c’est la forme étrange que Pascal
lui a donnée. Pour quiconque a vu les écrits de ce genre de la part
d’hallucinés, le premier coup d’œil montre que l’écrit de Pascal
appartient à cette catégorie. D’ailleurs, il porte l’énonciation
manifeste d’une vision en ces termes: ‘Depuis environ dix heures et
demie du soir jusque environ minuit et demi, feu.’ Ainsi, ce jour-là,
le lundi 23 Novembre, 1654, pendant environ deux heures, Pascal eut
la vision d’un feu qu’il prit pour une apparition surnaturelle, et sa
conviction fut si forte qu’elle le détermina à entrer plus avant qu’il
n’avait fait jusqu’alors dans les voies de la dévotion et du rigorisme
janséniste.”[602]


CHARACTS.

Of the species of charms known as characts we have many examples in the
practice of Anglo-Saxon physicians. In the preface to the _Herbarium
of Apuleius_, used at Glastonbury, Mr. Cockayne, the editor, gives the
following from Marcellus, 380 A.D., to avoid inflamed eyes: “Write on
a clean sheet of ουβαικ, and hang this round the patient’s neck, with
a thread from the loom.” In a state of purity and chastity write on
a clean sheet of paper φυρφαραν, and hang it round the man’s neck;
it will stop the approach of inflammation. The following will stop
inflammation coming on, written on a clean sheet of paper: ρουβος,
ρνονειρας ρηελιος ως· καντεφορα· και παντες ηακοτει; it must be hung
to the neck by a thread; and if both the patient and operator are in a
state of chastity, it will stop inveterate inflammation. Again, write
on a thin plate of gold with a needle of copper, ορνω ουρωδη; do this
on a Monday; observe chastity; it will long and much avail.

_Characts_ are amulets in the form of inscriptions, and are to be found
in all the old houses still existing in Edinburgh.[603] The name of God
is one of the commonest characts.

Rabbi Hama gives a sacred seal with divine names written in Hebrew,
which he declares will cure not only all kinds of diseases, but heal
all griefs whatsoever. The seals are figured in Morley’s _Life of
Cornelius Agrippa_.[604]

When a charact or charm lost its original meaning, it came to bear that
of something worn for its supposed efficacy in preserving the wearer
from danger in mind or body, and now means a mere trinket to hang on a
watch chain. One of the most famous of ancient charms was the name of
the supreme deity of the Assyrians. This was the Abracadabra, which was
supposed to have a magical efficacy as an antidote against ague, fever,
flux, and toothache.[605] It was written on parchment, and arranged as
follows:—

                         A B R A C A D A B R A
                          A B R A C A D A B R
                           A B R A C A D A B
                            A B R A C A D A
                             A B R A C A D
                              A B R A C A
                               A B R A C
                                A B R A
                                 A B R
                                  A B
                                   A

This was suspended round the neck by a linen thread. The word Abraxas,
or Abrasax, was engraved on antique stones, and used as amulets or
charms against disease. Sometimes mystical characters and figures were
added, as the head of a fowl, the arms and bust of a man terminating
in the body and tail of a serpent. It is of Egyptian origin, and is
referred to by the Greek Fathers. The Egyptians used it to dispossess
evil spirits and to cure diseases.[606]

Abraxas is the president of the 365th heaven, and is thus evidently a
sun myth. Apollo is the sun in mythology, and he was the god of physic
or healing.[607]

Brande, in his _Popular Antiquities_, gives the following charm from a
manuscript of the date of 1475:[608]—

“Here ys a charme for wyked Wych. In nomine Patris, et Filii, et
Spiritus Sancti. Amen. Per Virtutem Domini sint Medicina mei pia Crux ✠
et passio Christi ✠. Vulnera quinque Domini sint Medicina mei ✠. Virgo
Maria mihi succurre, et defende ab omni maligno Demonio, et ab omni
maligno Spiritu. Amen. ✠ a ✠ g ✠ l ✠ a ✠ Tetragrammaton. ✠ Alpha, ✠ oo,
✠ primogenitus, ✠ vita, vita. ✠ Sapiencia, ✠ Virtus, ✠ Jesus Nazarenus
rex judeorum, ✠ fili Domini, miserere mei. Amen. ✠ Marcus ✠ Matheus
✠ Lucas ✠ Johannes mihi succurrite et defendite. Amen. ✠ Omnipotens
sempiterne Deus, hunc N. famulum tuum hoc breve Scriptum super se
portantem prospere salvet dormiendo, vigilando, potando, et precipue
sompniando ab omni Maligno Demonio, eciam ab omni maligno spiritu ✠.”

One of the most famous charms of this kind is the “Solomon’s Seal.”

[Illustration: Solomon's Seal]

Amongst the Cabalists an amulet, with the names “Senoi, Sansenoi,
Semongeloph,” upon it, was fastened round the neck of the new-born
child.[609]

The first Psalm, when written on doeskin, was supposed to help the
birth of children; but the writer of such Psalm amulets, as soon as he
had written one line, had to plunge into a bath. “Moreover,” says Mr.
Morley, “that the charm might be the work of a pure man, before every
new line of his manuscript it was thought necessary that he should
repeat the plunge.”[610]


SACRED NAMES AS CHARMS.

Some of the Jews accounted for the miracles of healing wrought by our
Saviour by declaring that He had learned the Mirific Word, the true
pronunciation of the name Jehovah; this word stirs all the angels and
rules all creatures. They said that He had gained admission to the Holy
of Holies, where He learned the sacred mystery, wrote it on a tablet,
cut open His thigh, and having put the tablet in the wound, closed the
flesh by uttering the mystic Name. The names of angels and evil spirits
were also held to be potent by the Cabalists. The name of a bad angel,
Schabriri, was used when written down as a charm to cure ophthalmia.


STOLEN PROPERTY AS A CHARM.

In Mr. Andrew Lang’s delightful _Custom and Myth_ he says that he once
met at dinner a lady who carried a _stolen_ potato about with her as a
cure for rheumatism. The potato must be stolen, or the charm would not
work.

A small piece of beef, if _stolen_ from a butcher, is supposed by some
persons to charm away warts.




                               BOOK IV.

              _CELTIC, TEUTONIC, AND MEDIÆVAL MEDICINE._




CHAPTER I.

MEDICINE OF THE DRUIDS, TEUTONS, ANGLO-SAXONS, AND WELSH.

 Origin of the Druid Religion.—Druid Medicine.—Their Magic.—Teutonic
 Medicine.—Gods of Healing.—Elves.—The Elements.—Anglo-Saxon
 Leechcraft.—The Leech-book.—Monastic Leechdoms.—Superstitions.—Welsh
 Medicine.—The Triads.—Welsh Druidism.—The Laws of the Court
 Physicians.—Welsh Medical Maxims.—Welsh Medical and Surgical Practice
 and Fees.


MEDICINE OF THE DRUIDS.

The learned men of the Celto-Britannic regions were called Druids. They
were the judges, legislators, priests, and physicians, and corresponded
to the Magi of the ancient Persians and Chaldæans of Syria. The
etymology of the name is uncertain. The old derivation from δρῦς, an
oak, is considered fanciful, and that from the Irish _draoi_, _druidh_
= a magician, an augur, is by some authorities preferred. It is
probable that they derived their knowledge from association with Greek
colonists of Marseilles, as such writing as they used was in Greek
characters, and they taught the doctrine of the immortality of the
soul and a philosophy which Diodorus Siculus says was similar to that
of the teaching of Pythagoras. Clement of Alexandria compared their
religion to Shamanism. Whatever it was, it did not differ probably very
widely from other systems which pretended to put its priests in direct
communication with gods and demons. Its priests, says Sprengel, were
simply impostors who pretended to exclusive knowledge of medicine and
other sciences. Their women practised sorcery and divination, but by
their medical skill were able to afford great assistance to the wounded
in war. Plants were collected and magical properties ascribed to them.
Lying-in women sought the aid of these Druidesses, who seem to have
been wise women, somewhat after the character of gypsies. Mela says
these women were called Senæ. They pretended to cure the most incurable
diseases and to raise tempests by their incantations.[611] The Druids
communicated their knowledge to initiates only, and they celebrated
their mystic rites under groves of oaks. Whatever grew on that tree was
considered a divine gift; their highest veneration was reserved for
the mistletoe, which they called All-Heal, and which they considered a
panacea for all diseases. Three other plants, called _Selago_, a kind
of club-moss, or perhaps hedge-hyssop, _Samulus_, the brookweed or
winter cress, and Vervain, were held to be sacred plants. The mistletoe
must be gathered fasting, the gatherer must not look backward while
doing it, and he must take it with his left hand. The branches and
herbs were immersed in water, and the infusion then became possessed
of the property of preserving the drinkers from disease. When the
Selago and Vervain were gathered, a white garment was worn, sacrifices
of bread and wine were offered, and the gatherer, having covered his
hand with the skirt of his robe, cut up the herbs with a hook made
of a metal more precious than iron, placed it in a clean cloth, and
preserved it as a charm against misfortunes and accidents.[612]

Strutt says: “Faint is the light thrown upon the methods pursued by the
Druids in preparing their medicines. Some few hints, it is true, we
meet with, of their extracting the juice of herbs, their bruising and
steeping them in water, infusing them in wine, boiling them and making
fumes from them, and the like; it also appears that they were not
ignorant of making salves and ointments from vegetables.”[613]

In Britain the magical juggles, ceremonies, and rites were carried to
a greater excess than in any other Celtic nation. They made a great
mystery of their learning, their seminaries were held in groves and
forests and the caverns of the earth.[614] Strutt thinks that their
alphabet was derived from the Greek merchants, who came frequently to
the island. Pliny says that the ancient Britons were much addicted to
the arts of divination.[615] Diodorus Siculus describes one of their
methods. “They take a man who is to be sacrificed and kill him with one
stroke of a sword above the diaphragm; and by observing the posture in
which he falls, his different convulsions, and the direction in which
the blood flows from his body, they form their predictions, according
to certain rules which have been left them by their ancestors.”[616]

Strutt says:[617] “The people were the more particularly inclined to
make application to them for relief, because they thought that all
internal diseases proceeded from the anger of the gods, and therefore
none could be so proper to make intercession for them as the priest of
those very deities from whom their afflictions came; for this cause
also they offered sacrifices when sick; and if dangerously ill, the
better to prevail upon the gods to restore them to health, a man was
slain and sacrificed upon their altars.” The custom of human sacrifices
doubtless afforded the Druids some knowledge of human anatomy. Their
surgery was of a simple but useful character, and had to do principally
with setting broken bones, reducing dislocations, and healing wounds;
all this, of course, combined with magical ceremonies.[618]

Pliny refers to the magical practices of the Druids, and states
that the Emperor Tiberius put them down, “and all that tribe of
wizards and physicians.”[619] He adds that they crossed the ocean and
“penetrated to the void recesses of Nature,” as he calls Britannia.
There, he tells us, they still cultivated the magic art, and that with
fascinations and ceremonials so august that Persia might almost seem
to have communicated it direct to Britain. “The worship of the stars,
lakes, forests, and rivers, the ceremonials used in cutting the plants
Samiolus, Selago, and Mistletoe, and the virtues attributed to the
adder’s egg,” are thought by Ajasson to indicate the connection between
the superstitions of ancient Britain and those of Persia.[620]


MEDICINE OF THE TEUTONS.

The Goths and other German peoples were from early times brought into
relationship with the Romans, and had acquired some of the advantages
of their civilization.

Originally their medical notions were not dissimilar to those of other
barbaric nations. On the one hand, there was the belief in disease as
the manifestation of the anger of supernatural beings who could be
propitiated by prayers and magic rites; while on the other, the use
of medicinal plants and the ministrations of old women were not less
prominent. Tacitus points out the important part played by the women in
the life of the Germans, and the good influence they exerted as nurses
to the sick.

The Roman general Agricola, who was in Britain from A.D. 78-84, induced
the noblemen’s sons to learn the liberal sciences.[621] They must have
acquired some knowledge of Greek and Roman medicine.

In the earliest ages, says Baas,[622] women only seem to have
practised medicine among the Germans and Celts. Medicine was deemed a
profession unworthy of men, and it is not till the twelfth century that
physicians are spoken of. Probably old women or Druidesses in ancient
times were the only doctors of these peoples. Puschmann says that the
Norwegians had a number of highly paid doctors in the tenth century,
and that already a medical tax existed.[623]

In the time of the Vikings wounds were well attended to, amputations
performed, and wooden legs were not uncommon. “Mention,” says
Puschmann, “is also made of the operation called gastroraphy” (or
sewing up a wound of the belly or some of its contents);[624] lithotomy
was performed successfully.

Wodan is the all-pervading creative and formative power who gives shape
and beauty, wealth, prosperity, and all highest blessings to men.[625]

Eir was the goddess of physicians; Odin was a doctor; Brunhilda was a
doctoress.

The ancient German nations offered to the gods sacrifices of human
food, which they believed they enjoyed. These sacrifices were offered
as thanksgivings or to appease their anger. When a famine or a
pestilence appeared amongst the people, they concluded that the gods
were angry, and they proceeded to propitiate them with gifts.[626]

Animal and especially human sacrifices had the most binding and atoning
power.[627]

The Teutonic elves are good-natured, helpful beings. They fetch
goodwives, midwives, to assist she-dwarfs in labour, and have much
knowledge of occult healing virtues in plants and stones.[628] But
elves sometimes do mischief to men. Their touch and their breath may
bring sickness or death on man and beast. Lamed cattle are said in
Norway to be bewitched by them, and their avenging hand makes men silly
or half-witted.[629]

Teutonic peoples have always had great faith in the normal influence of
pure water.

The Germans believed in the magical properties of water hallowed at
midnight of the day of baptism. Such water they called _heilawâc_.
They believed it to have a wonderful power of healing diseases and
wounds, and of never spoiling.[630] The salt which is added to holy
water in the church will account for its keeping properties. But it
is in medicinal springs, such as are called Heilbrunn, Heilborn,
Heiligenbrunnen, that Teutonic faith has always exhibited the
strongest devotion. Sacrifices, says Grimm, were offered at such
springs. When the Wetterau people begin a new jug of chalybeate water,
they always spill a few drops first on the ground. Grimm thinks this
was originally a libation to the fountain sprite.[631] The Christians
replaced water-sprites by saints.

Fire was regularly worshipped, and there are many superstitions
still existing which point to this phase of Teutonic religion. “The
Esthonians throw gifts into fire, as well as into water. To pacify the
flame they sacrifice a fowl to it.”[632] Sulphur has always had an
evil reputation. Murrain amongst cattle could only be got rid of by a
Needfire. On the day appointed for banishing the pest, there must in no
house be any flame left on the hearth, but a new fire must be kindled
by friction after the manner of savages.[633]

Teutonic children born with a caul about their head are believed to be
lucky children. The membrane is carefully treasured, and sometimes worn
round the babe as an amulet. The Icelanders imagine that the child’s
guardian spirit resides in it; midwives are careful not to injure it,
but bury it under the threshold. If any one throws it away, he deprives
the child of its guardian spirit.[634]


ANGLO-SAXON MEDICINE.

It is difficult to discover what was the state of learning existing
amongst the ancient Saxons before their conversion to Christianity. We
know that soon after this event schools were established in Kent, with
such good results that Sigebert (A.D. 635) established seminaries on
the same plan in his own dominions. After this, as Bede informs us,
there flourished a great number of learned men.[635]

Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, came over into Britain A.D. 669,
and did much to improve the learning of the country. He was accompanied
by many professors of science, one of whom, the monk Adrian, instructed
a great number of students in the sciences, especially teaching the
art of medicine and establishing rules for preserving the health.[636]
Aldhelm, who according to Bede was a man of great erudition and was
“wonderfully well acquainted with books,” very greatly contributed to
the spread of education.

The state of medicine in England in Anglo-Saxon times is said by
Strutt[637] to have been very degraded. Medicine consisted chiefly
of nostrums which had been handed down from one age to another, and
their administration was usually accompanied with whimsical rites
and ceremonies, to which the success was often in a great measure
attributed. The most ignorant persons practised the profession, and
particularly old women, who were supposed to be the most expert and
were in high repute amongst the Anglo-Saxons. After the establishment
of Christianity the clergy succeeded to the business carried on by
the ancient dames, and it must be admitted that the superstitious
element in their treatment of disease was not less prominent than in
that of their venerable predecessors. Bede says[638] that Theodore,
Archbishop of Canterbury, taught that “It is very dangerous to let
blood on the fourth day of the moon, because both the light of the moon
and the tides are upon the increase.” Before any medicine could be
administered, fortunate and unfortunate times, the changes of the moon
and appearance of the planets, had to be considered.

Many medicinal books were amongst those which Ælfred the Great caused
to be translated into the Saxon tongue. Some of them were embellished
with illustrations of herbs, etc., so that about the tenth century some
knowledge of medicine was diffused, and Strutt thinks there may have
been persons whose only profession was medicine and surgery, besides
the ecclesiastics who practised these arts, before the close of the
Saxon government.[639]

The Anglo-Saxons, even after their conversion to Christianity,
retained much of the superstition of their ancestors; they placed
faith in astrology, and had some acquaintance with astronomy, which
they obtained from the Romans, from whom they learned most of the arts
and sciences. They had a good knowledge of botany, and their MS. were
embellished with excellent drawings of the herbs and plants.[640]

Theodore brought with him a large collection of books, and set up
schools in Kent, where many students were instructed in the sciences
and the knowledge and application of medicine and the rules for the
preservation of the health.[641]

The Rev. Oswald Cockayne has given us, in his translation of the Saxon
_Leech Book_, a very curious and interesting citation from Helias,
Patriarch of Jerusalem, who wrote to King Ælfred in answer to his
request to be furnished with some good recipes from the Holy Land:

“Patriarch Helias sends these to King Ælfred:[642]__

       *       *       *       *       *

“So much as may weigh a penny and a half, rub very small, then add
the white of an egg, and give it to the man to sip. It (_balsam_) is
also very good in this wise for cough and for carbuncle, apply this
wort, soon shall the man be hole. This is smearing with balsam for
all infirmities which are on a man’s body, against fever, and against
apparitions, and against all delusions. Similarly also petroleum is
good to drink simple for inward tenderness, and to smear on outwardly
on a winter’s day, since it hath very much heat; hence one shall drink
it in winter; and it is good if for any one his speech faileth, then
let him take it, and make the mark of Christ under his tongue, and
swallow a little of it. Also if a man become out of his wits, then
let him take part of it, and make Christ’s mark on every limb, except
the cross upon the forehead, that shall be of balsam, and the other
_also_ on the top of the head. Triacle (θηριακόν) is a good drink for
all inward tendernesses, and the man, who so behaveth himself as is
here said, he may much help himself. On the day on which he will drink
_Triacle_, he shall fast until midday, and not let the wind blow on
him that day: then let him go to the bath, let him sit there till he
sweat; then let him take a cup, and put a little warm water in it, then
let him take a little bit of the triacle, and mingle with the water,
and drain through some thin raiment, then drink it, and let him then
go to his bed and wrap himself up warm, and so lie till he sweat well;
then let him arise and sit up and clothe himself, and then take his
meat at noon, and protect himself earnestly against the wind that day;
then, I believe to God, that it may help the man much. The white stone
is powerful against stitch, and against flying venom, and against all
strange calamities; thou shalt shave it into water and drink a good
mickle, and shave thereto a portion of the red earth, and the stones
are all very good to drink of, against all strange uncouth things. When
the fire is struck out of the stone, it is good against lightenings
and against thunders, and against delusion of every kind; and if a man
in his way is gone astray, let him strike himself a spark before him.
He will soon be in the right way. All this Dominus Helias, Patriarch
at Jerusalem, ordered _one_ to say to King Ælfred.” Mr. Cockayne tells
us in his preface[643] that Helias sent Alfred “a recommendation
of scammony, which is the juice of a Syrian convolvulus, of gutta
ammoniacum,[644] of spices, of gum dragon, of aloes, of galbanum, of
balsam, of petroleum, of the famous Greek compound preparation called
θηριακή and of the magic virtues of alabaster. These drugs are good in
themselves, and such as a resident in Syria would naturally recommend
to others.” This very singular and instructive fact concerning King
Ælfred is one of the most interesting things in Mr. Cockayne’s valuable
work.

As to the age of the MS., the translator sets it down about A.D.
900. The sources of the information he ascribes to Oxa, Dun, and
Helias; there is a mixture of the Hibernian and Scandinavian elements
also. Some of the prescriptions are traceable to Latin writers, and
large extracts are made from the Greek physicians. Paulus Ægineta is
responsible for the long passage on hiccupings (or Hicket, as the
_Leech Book_ calls the malady), as chapter xviii. is almost identical
with Paulus Ægin., lib. ii. sect. 57. Mr. Cockayne thinks that the
number of passages the Saxon drew from the Greek would make perhaps
one-fourth of the first two books. Whether they came direct from the
Greek manuscripts or at second hand as quotations, it is not possible
to say. Quoting M. Brechillet Jourdain,[645] Mr. Cockayne says that it
is shown that the wise men of the Middle Ages long before the invention
of printing possessed Latin translations of Aristotle; there is every
probability, therefore, that they would be familiar with the works of
the Greek physicians. Some of them could translate Greek. If an Italian
or Frenchman could acquire Greek and turn it into Latin, a Saxon might
do as much. Bede and his disciples could certainly have done so. Bede
says that Tobias, Bishop of Rochester, was as familiar with the Greek
and Latin languages as with his own. “It appears, therefore,” concludes
Mr. Cockayne, “that the leeches of the Angles and Saxons had the
means, by personal industry or by the aid of others, of arriving at a
competent knowledge of the contents of the works of the Greek medical
writers. Here, in this volume, the results are visible. They keep, for
the most part, to the diagnosis and the theory; they go back in the
prescriptions to the easier remedies; for whether in Galen or others,
there was a chapter on the εὐπόριστα, the ‘parabilia,’ the resources of
country practitioners, and of course, even now, expensive medicines are
not prescribed for poor patients.”[646]

In the very valuable Saxon Leechdoms[647] we have an excellent account
of the state of medicine as practised in England before the Norman
Conquest. The _Leech Book_ (Læce Boc)[648] is a treatise on medicine
which probably belonged to the abbey of Glastonbury. The manuscript,
thinks Mr. Cockayne, belonged to one Bald, a monk. The book, says the
editor, is learned in a literary sense, but not in a professional, for
it does not really advance man’s knowledge of disease or of cures. He
may have been a physician, he was certainly a lover of books—“nulla
mihi tam cara est optima gaza quam cari libri.” The work seems to imply
that there was a school of medicine among the Saxons. In the first
book, p. 120, we read that “Oxa taught us this leechdom”; in the second
book, p. 293, we are told concerning a leechdom for lung disease that
“Dun taught it”; again we find “some teach us.” So far as book learning
was concerned, there was certainly a sort of medical teaching. It was
perhaps merely taken from the Greek by means of a Latin translation of
Trallianus, Paulus of Ægina, and Philagrios. As examples of reasonable
treatment take that for hare-lip (or hair-lip as in the text): “Pound
mastic very small, add the white of an egg, and mingle as thou dost
vermilion, cut with a knife the false edges of the lip, sew fast with
silk, then smear without and within with the salve, ere the silk rot.
If it draw together, arrange it with the hand, anoint again soon.”[649]

Against pediculi quicksilver and old butter are to be mingled together
in a mortar, and the resulting salve to be applied to the body. This is
precisely the mercurial ointment of modern pharmacy used for the same
purpose.

Religion, magic, and medicine were oddly mixed up by our Saxon
forefathers. Thus the _Leech Book_ tells us[650] for the “dry” disease
we should “delve about sour ompre (i.e. _sorrel dock_), sing thrice
the Pater noster, jerk it up, then while thou sayest sed libera nos a
malo, take five slices of it and seven peppercorns, bray them together,
and while thou be working it, sing twelve times the psalm Miserere
mei, Deus, and Gloria in excelsis deo, and the Pater noster; then pour
the stuff all over with wine, when day and night divide, then drink
the dose and wrap thyself up warm.” Here is an exorcism for fever. “A
man shall write this upon the sacramental paten, and wash it off into
the drink with holy water, and sing over it.... In the beginning, etc.
(John i. 1). Then wash the writing with holy water off the dish into
the drink, then sing the Credo, and the Paternoster, and this lay,
Beati immaculati, the psalm (cxix.), with the twelve prayer psalms,
I adjure you, etc. And let each of the two[651] then sip thrice of
the water so prepared.”[652] The demon theory of disease was still
in force; even at Glastonbury we find the following exorcism:[653]
“For a fiend sick man, when a devil possesses the man or controls him
from within with disease; a spew drink, lupin, bishopwort, henbane,
cropleek; pound _these_ together, add ale for a liquid, let stand for
a night, add fifty libcorns (or _cathartic grains_), and holy water. A
drink for a fiend sick man, to be drunk out of church bell.”[654]

“Githrife, cynoglossum, yarrow, lupin, betony, attorlothe, cassock,
flower de luce, fennel, church lichen, lichen, of Christ’s mark or
crosse, lovage; work up the drink off clear ale, sing seven masses
over the worts, add garlic and holy water, and drip the drink into
every drink which he will subsequently drink, and let him sing the
psalm, Beati immaculati, and Exurgat, and Salvum me fac, Deus,[655]
and then let him drink the drink out of a church bell, and let the
mass priest after the drink sing this over him: Domine, sancte pater
omnipotens.”[656] Again, “For the phrenzied; bishopwort, lupin,
bonewort, everfern,[657] githrife, elecampane; when day and night
divide, then sing thou in the church litanies, that is, the names of
the hallows or saints, and the Paternoster; with the song go thou, that
thou mayest be near the worts and go thrice about them, and when thou
takest them go again to church with the same song, and sing twelve
masses over them, and over all the drinks which belong to the disease,
in honour of the twelve apostles.”[658]

The _Leech Book_ has “a salve against nocturnal goblin visitors,” a
remedy “against a woman’s chatter,” which is to go to bed, having eaten
only a root of radish; “that day the chatter cannot harm thee.”[659]
Red niolin, a plant which grows by running water, if put under the
bolster, will prevent the devil from scathing a man within or without.
There is “a lithe drink against a devil and dementedness,” and a cure
for a man who is “overlooked.”

If the man’s face is turned toward the doctor when he enters the
sick room, “then he may live; if his face be turned from thee, have
thou nothing to do with him.” “In case a man be lunatic, take of a
mere-swine or porpoise, work it into a whip, swinge the man therewith;
soon he will be well. Amen.”[660]

A salve against temptation of the devil contains many herbs, must have
nine masses said over it, and must be set under the altar for a while;
then it is very good for every temptation of the fiend, and for a man
full of elfin tricks, and for typhus fever.[661]

Cancer is to be cured with goat’s gall and honey. Our forefathers made
very light of such trifles as cancer and lunacy, it will be perceived.
Joint pains (rheumatism) are cured by singing over them, “Malignus
obligavit; angelus curavit; dominus salvavit,” and then spitting on the
joints. “It will soon be well with him,” adds the Saxon leech, in his
usual cheery manner.[662] Pepper is to be chewed for the toothache; “it
will soon be well with them.” Horrible applications of pepper, salt,
and vinegar were recommended to be applied to sore eyes. If the eyes
were swollen, “take a live crab, put his eyes out, and put him alive
again into the water, and put the eyes on the neck of the man who hath
need; he will soon be well.”

There are light drinks “against the devil and want of memory,” “for a
wild heart,” and “pain of the maw.” There is treatment for the bite of
“a gangwayweaving spider,” and remedies in case a woman cannot “kindle
a child.” Neuralgia and megrims are not the new disorders they are
generally supposed to be, as we find remedies “for headache, and for
old headache, and for ache of half of the head.”

“Poison” was lightly treated with holy water and herbs. Snake-bite was
cured with ear-wax and a collect. For bite of an adder you said one
word “Faul”; “it may not hurt him.” “Against bite of snake, if the man
procures and eateth rind which cometh out of paradise, no venom will
damage him. Then said he that wrote this book that the rind was hard
gotten.” If, by chance, one drank a creeping thing in water, he was
to cut into a sheep instantly and drink the sheep’s blood hot. Lest a
man tire with much travelling over land, he must take mugwort and put
it into his shoe, saying, as he pulls up the root, “I will take thee,
artemisia, lest I be weary on the way;” and having taken it, he must
sign it with the sign of the cross.

“Over the whole face of Europe, while the old Hellenic school survived
in Arabia, the next to hand resource became the established remedy, and
the searching incision of the practised anatomist was replaced by a
droning song.”[663]

Such medical learning as existed amongst the Angles, Saxons, and Goths
was found only in a corrupted state in the monasteries. As we have
seen, the herbal remedies were, for the most, useless or worse, and
the treatment was so intermingled with magic ceremonies and religious
superstitious uses, that Greek science, so far as it related to the
healing art, was all but smothered by absurdities.

“The Saxon leeches were unable to use the catheter, the searching
knife, and the lithotrite; they knew nothing of the Indian drugs, and
were almost wholly thrown back on the lancet wherewith to let blood,
and the simples from the field and garden.”[664]

“For a very old headache” one must “seek in the maw of young swallows
for some little stones, and mind that they touch neither earth, nor
water, nor other stones; look out three of them, put them on the man;
he will soon be well. They are good for head ache and for eye wark, and
for the fiend’s temptations, and for the night mare, and for knot, and
for fascination, and for evil enchantments by song.”[665]

As a specimen of a regular Anglo-Saxon prescription, take the
following, as given in the MS. Cott.: Vitellius; c. 3:—

For the foot-adle (the gout), “Take the herb datulus, or titulosa,
which we call greater crauleac—tuberose isis. Take the heads of it
and dry them very much, and take thereof a pennyweight and a half,
and the pear tree and Roman bark, and cummin, and a fourth part of
laurel-berries, and of the other herbs half a pennyweight of each, and
six peppercorns, and grind all to dust, and put two egg-shells full of
wine. This is true leechcraft. Give it the man till he be well.”

Venesection was in use, but it must have often done more harm than
good, as its use was regulated, not so much by the necessities of the
case as by the season and courses of the moon. Bede gives a long list
of times when bleeding was forbidden. In the Cottonian library there
is a Saxon MS., which tells us that the second, third, fifth, sixth,
ninth, eleventh, fifteenth, seventeenth, and twentieth days of the
month are bad for bleeding.


MEDICINE OF THE WELSH.

The Welsh claim that medicine was practised as one of “the nine rural
arts,” by the ancient Cymry, before they became possessed of cities and
a sovereignty, that is, before the time of Prydain ab Ædd Mawr, that is
to say, about a thousand years before the Christian era.[666]

As in other nations of antiquity, the practice of medicine was in
the hands of the priests, the GWYDDONIAID, or men of knowledge: they
were the depositaries of such wisdom as existed in the land, and they
practised almost entirely by means of herbs. The science of plants was
one of the three sciences, the others being theology and astronomy.[667]

In the following Triad (one of the poetical histories of the Welsh
bards) we learn that,—“The three pillars of knowledge, with which
the Gwyddoniaid were acquainted, and which they bore in memory from
the beginning: the first was a knowledge of Divine things, and of
such matters as appertain to the worship of God and the homage due to
goodness; the second, a knowledge of the course of the stars, their
names and kinds, and the order of times; the third, a knowledge of the
names and use of the herbs of the field, and of their application in
practice, in medicine, and in religious worship. These were preserved
in the memorials of vocal song, and in the memorials of times, before
there were bards of degree and chair.”[668]

The Welsh do not appear to have had any gods of medicine or to have
pretended to derive their knowledge of the healing art from any
divinities. In the reign of Prydian the Gwyddoniaid were divided into
three orders, Bards, Druids, and Ovates. The Ovates occupied themselves
especially with the natural sciences. In the Laws of Dyvnwal Moelmud,
“medicine, commerce, and navigation” were termed “the three civil
arts.”[669]

This legislator lived about the year 430 B.C., at which early period it
would seem that the art of medicine was encouraged and protected by the
State.[670]

As Hippocrates lived 400 B.C., it has been thought possible that the
British Ovates may have learned something of his teaching from the
Phoceans, who traded between Marseilles and Britain. Later we have
proof that the physicians of Myddvai held the Father of Medicine in
great esteem.

It is customary amongst the English to ridicule the pretensions of
the Welsh to the high antiquity of their knowledge of the arts and
sciences, but classical writers bear witness to the wisdom and learning
of the Druids. Strabo speaks of their knowledge of physiology. Cicero
was acquainted with one of the Gallic Druids, who was called Divitiacus
the Æduan, and claimed to have a thorough knowledge of the laws of
nature. Pliny mentions the plants used as medicines by the Druids, such
as the mistletoe, called _Oll iach, omnia sanantem_, or “All heal,” the
selago (_Lycopodium selago_, or Upright Fir Moss), and the Samolus or
marshwort (_Samolus valerandi_, or Water Pimpernel).[671]

One of the Medical Triads in the Llanover MS. is that by Taliesin; it
runs thus:—

“There are three intractable substantial organs: the liver, the kidney,
and the heart.

“There are three intractable membranes: the dura mater, the peritoneum,
and the urinary bladder.

“There are three tedious complaints: disease of the knee joint, disease
of the substance of a rib, and phthysis; for when purulent matter has
formed in one of these, it is not known when it will get well.”

Howel Dda (or the good) in the year 930 A.D. compiled the following
laws of the Court Physician:—

“Of the mediciner of the household, his office, his privilege, and his
duty, this treats.

1. The twelfth is the mediciner of the household.

2. He is to have his land free: his horse in attendance: and his linen
clothing from the queen, and his woollen clothing from the king.

3. His seat in the hall within the palace is at the base of the pillar
to which the screen is attached, near which the king sits.

4. His lodging is with the chief of the household.

5. His protection is, from the time the king shall command him to visit
a wounded or sick person, whether the person be in the palace or out of
it, until he quit him, to convey away an offender.

6. He is to administer medicine gratuitously to all within the palace,
and to the chief of the household; and he is to have nothing from
them except their bloody clothes, unless it be for one of the three
dangerous wounds, as mentioned before; these are a stroke on the head
unto the brain; a stroke in the body unto the bowels; and the breaking
of one of the four limbs; for every one of these three dangerous wounds
the mediciner is to have nine score pence and his food, or one pound
without his food, and also the bloody clothes.

7. The mediciner is to have, when he shall apply a tent, twenty-four
pence.

8. For an application of red ointment, twelve pence.

9. For an application of herbs to a swelling, four legal pence.

10. For letting blood, fourpence.

11. His food daily is worth one penny half-penny.

12. His light every night is worth one legal penny.

13. The worth of a medical man is one penny.

14. The mediciner is to take an indemnification from the kindred of the
wounded person, in case he die from the remedy he may use, and if he do
not take it, let him answer for the deed.

15. He is to accompany the armies.

16. He is never to leave the palace, but with the king’s permission.

17. His saraad is six kine, and six score of silver, to be augmented.

18. His worth is six score and six kine, to be augmented.”

Elsewhere we meet with the following particulars:—

“Of the three conspicuous scars this is:

“There are three conspicuous scars: one upon the face; another upon
the foot; and another upon the hand; thirty pence upon the foot;
three-score pence upon the hand; six-score pence on the face. Every
unexposed scar, fourpence. The cranium, fourpence.”[672]

“For every broken bone, twenty pence; unless there be a dispute as to
its diminutiveness; and if there be a dispute as to the size, let the
mediciner take a brass basin, and let him place his elbow upon the
ground, and his hand over the basin, and if its sound be heard, let
four legal pence be paid; and if it be not heard, nothing is due.”[673]

This singular test is explained in another passage, thus:—

“Four curt pennies are to be paid to a person for every bone taken from
the upper part of the cranium, which shall sound on falling into a
copper basin.”[674]

A very curious regulation was that if the physician got drunk and
anybody insulted him, he could claim no recompense, because “he knew
not at what time the king might want his assistance.”

The physicians of Myddvai flourished in the time of Rhys Gryg in the
early part of the thirteenth century. His domestic physician was
Rhiwallon, who was assisted by his three sons Cadwgan, Gruffydd, and
Einion. They lived at Myddvai, in the present county of Caermarthen. By
command of the prince, these physicians made a collection of the most
valuable prescriptions for the treatment of the various diseases of
the human body. This collection was not reduced to writing previously,
though many of the recipes were no doubt in use some centuries before.
The original manuscript is in the British Museum, and there is a copy
in Jesus College, Oxford, in the _Red Book_, which has been published
with an English translation by the Welsh MSS. Society.[675] The
descendants of this family of physicians continued to practise medicine
without intermission until the middle of the last century. This most
interesting volume also contains a second portion, which purports to
be a compilation by Howel the physician, son of Rhys, son of Llewelyn,
son of Philip the physician, a lineal descendant of Einion the son of
Rhiwallon. Some medical prescriptions assumed the form of proverbs such
as the following:—


MEDICAL MAXIMS.

(_From the Book of Iago ab Dewi._)

“He who goes to sleep supperless will have no need of Rhiwallon of
Myddvai.

A supper of apples—breakfast of nuts.

A cold mouth and warm feet will live long.

To the fish market in the morning, to the butcher’s shop in the
afternoon.

Cold water and warm bread will make an unhealthy stomach.

The three qualities of water: it will produce no sickness, no debt, and
no widowhood.

To eat eggs without salt will bring on sickness.

It is no insult to deprive an old man of his supper.

An eel in a pie, lampreys in salt.

An ague or fever at the fall of the leaf is always of long continuance,
or else is fatal.

A kid a month old—a lamb three months.

Dry feet, moist tongue.

A salmon and a sermon in Lent.

Supper will kill more than were ever cured by the physicians of Myddvai.

A light dinner, a less supper, sound sleep, long life.

Do not wish for milk after fish.

To sleep much is the health of youth, the sickness of old age.

Long health in youth will shorten life.

It is more wholesome to smell warm bread than to eat it.

A short sickness for the body, and short frost for the earth, will
heal; either of them long will destroy.

Whilst the urine is clear, let the physician beg.

Better is appetite than gluttony.

Enough of bread, little of drink.

The bread of yesterday, the meat of to-day, and the wine of last year
will produce health.

Quench thy thirst where the washerwoman goes for water.

Three men that are long-lived: the ploughman of dry land, a mountain
dairyman, and a fisherman of the sea.

The three feasts of health: milk, bread, and salt.

The three medicines of the physicians of Myddvai: water, honey, and
labour.

Moderate exercise is health.

Three moderations will produce long life; in food, labour, and
meditation.

Whoso breaks not his fast in May, let him consider himself with the
dead.

He who sees fennel and gathers it not, is not a man, but a devil.

If thou desirest to die, eat cabbage in August.

Whatever quantity thou eatest, drink thrice.

God will send food to washed hands.

Drink water like an ox, and wine like a king.

One egg is economy, two is gentility, three is greediness, and the
fourth is wastefulness.

If persons knew how good a hen is in January, none would be left on the
roost.

The cheese of sheep, the milk of goats, and the butter of cows are the
best.

The three victuals of health: honey, butter, and milk.

The three victuals of sickness: flesh meat, ale, and vinegar.

Take not thy coat off before Ascension day.

If thou wilt become unwell, wash thy head and go to sleep.

In pottage without herbs there is neither goodness nor nourishment.

If thou wilt die, eat roast mutton and sleep soon after it.

If thou wilt eat a bad thing, eat roast hare.

Mustard after food.

He who cleans his teeth with the point of his knife may soon clean them
with the haft.

A dry cough is the trumpet of death.”

One of the laws of Howel Dda permitted divorce for so trifling a cause
as an unsavoury or disagreeable breath.[676]

Poppies bruised in wine were used to induce sleep. For agues the
treatment was to write in three apples on three separate days an
invocation to the Trinity; “on the third day he will recover.” Saffron
was used for many complaints; it is a drug still largely used by the
poor, who have unbounded faith in it, but it is almost inert. If a
person lost his reason, he was ordered to take primrose juice, “and he
will indeed recover.” There were regular tables of lucky and unlucky
days for bleeding. Fennel juice was supposed to act as a sort of
anti-fat, and the roots of thistles were given as a purgative. If a
snake should crawl into a man’s mouth, the patient was to take camomile
powder in wine. An irritable man was to drink celery juice; “it will
produce joy.” As we might have expected, the leek was supposed to have
many virtues; wives who desired children were told to eat leeks. Leek
juice and woman’s milk was good for whooping cough. The juice was also
used for deafness, heart-burn, headache, and boils. Mustard purifies
the brain, is an antidote to the bite of an adder, is good for colic,
loss of hair, palsy, and many other things. To ascertain the fate of
a sick person, bruise violets and apply them to the eyebrows; “if he
sleep, he will live, but if not he will die.”

Radishes were supposed to prevent hydrophobia. “That is the greatest
remedy, to remove a bone from the brain (to trephine) with safety.”
Dittany was the antidote for pain. Mouse-dung was used as a remedy for
spitting of blood, and a plaster of cow-dung for gout. An eye-water
was made from rotten apples. The berries of mistletoe were made
into a confection as a remedy for epilepsy. “Let the sick person
eat a good mouthful (they gave large doses in those days) thereof,
fasting morning, noon, and night. It is proven.” Sage was supposed to
strengthen the nerves (nerves in those days!). Nettles, goose-grass,
blessed-thistle, and rosemary were favourite remedies. Then we have
numerous curious charms and “medical feats discovered through the
grace of God.” Here is one: “Take a frog alive from the water, extract
his tongue (frogs have long been subject to vivisection), and put him
again in the water. Lay this same tongue upon the heart of sleeping
man, and he will confess his deeds in his sleep.” A charm for the
toothache runs thus: “Saint Mary sat on a stone, the stone being near
her hermitage, when the Holy Ghost came to her, she being sad. Why art
thou sad, mother of my Lord, and what pain tormenteth thee? My teeth
are painful, a worm called megrim has penetrated them, and I have
masticated and swallowed it. I adjure thee, daffin O negrbina, by the
Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, the Virgin Mary, and God, the
munificent physician, that thou dost not permit any disease, dolour,
or molestation to affect this servant of God here present, either in
tooth, eye, head, or in the whole of her teeth together. So be it.
Amen.”

All the herbs and plants (so far as was possible) which were used in
the doctor’s practice were directed to be grown by him in his garden
and orchard, so that they might be at hand when required.

In the table of weights and measures used by the ancient Welsh
physicians, we learn that twenty grains of wheat make one scruple, four
podfuls make one spoonful, four spoonfuls make one eggshellful, four
eggshellfuls make one cupful. The physician also for his guidance had
the following curious table:—Four grains of wheat = one pea, four peas
= one acorn, four acorns = one pigeon’s egg, four pigeon’s eggs = one
hen’s egg, four hen’s eggs = one goose’s egg, four goose’s eggs = one
swan’s egg.

“For treating a stroke on the head unto the brain, a stroke in the body
unto the bowels, and the breaking of one of the four limbs, the wounded
person was to receive three pounds from the one who wounded him; and
that person had also to pay for the medical treatment of the sufferer a
pound without food, or nine-score pence with his food, and the bloody
clothes.”[677]

The physicians of Myddvai recognised five kinds of fevers; viz.,
latent, intermittent, ephemeral, inflammatory, and typhus. The doctor’s
“three master difficulties” were a wounded lung, a wounded mammary
gland, and a wounded knee joint. “There are three bones which will
never unite when broken—a tooth, the knee pan, and the os frontis.”




CHAPTER II.

MOHAMMEDAN MEDICINE.

 Sources of Arabian Learning.—Influence of Greek and Hindu
 Literature.—The Nestorians.—Baghdad and its Colleges.—The Moors
 in Spain.—The Mosque Schools.—Arabian Inventions and Services to
 Literature.—The great Arab Physicians.—Serapion, Rhazes, Ali Abbas,
 Avicenna, Albucasis, and Averroes.


At the time of the incursions of the barbarians of the North, when
Spain, the South of France, Italy, and North Africa, with their
adjacent islands, were ravaged by these hordes, multitudes of those
who could escape so far found a refuge in the East; and there is good
reason for supposing that by such means a vast store of the accumulated
knowledge of civilized Europe found its way to Eastern lands. Science
in its turn has come back to us through the Saracens, who afterwards
invaded Southern Europe.[678]

It is not correct to speak of the Arabians or the Saracens as the
source of the culture which is known as Arabian and Saracenic. The
magnificent civilization of the Greek world fell to pieces like a noble
but ruined temple, and its precious relics went to form a score of
other civilizations which ultimately arose from its ruins. It was not
the Semitic peoples of Arabia which restored the philosophy and science
of the decayed Græco-Roman world, it was the Persians, the Greeks of
Asia Minor, the people of Alexandria, and the cultured Eastern nations,
generally, which having been subdued by the Arabs, at once began to
impart to their conquerors the culture which they lacked. The ignorant
followers of the Prophet who burned the Alexandrian Library knew not
what they did; the time was to come when Greek culture was to reach
them partly from the city whose literary treasures they had destroyed,
and partly through Syrian and Persian influences. By these roads came
the medical sciences to the Saracens. The second library of Alexandria,
consisting of 700,000 volumes, was destroyed by them, A.D. 642; but
we must conclude that many medical and other scientific works were
preserved, as the Jews and the Nestorians (banished from Constantinople
to Asia) first made the Arabians acquainted with Greek authors by
translating them into Syriac, whence they were in turn translated into
Arabic. Justinian I. (A.D. 529) banished the Platonists of Athens, when
Chosröes I., surnamed Nushirwan, or “the generous mind,” one of the
greatest monarchs of Persia, hospitably received them at his court.
He caused the best Greek, Latin, and Indian works to be translated
into Persian, and valued Græco-Roman medical science so highly that he
offered a suspension of hostilities for the single physician Tribunus.

The East in a great measure owed its acquaintance with the rich
treasures of Greek literature to the heresy of Nestorius. Nestorius
was a Syrian by birth, and became bishop of Constantinople. Having
denied that the Virgin Mary ought to be called “Mother of God,” he was
summoned to appear before the Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431), and was
deposed. Nestorian communities were formed, and the heretical opinions
rapidly spread, patronized as they were for political purposes by the
Persian kings. The Mahometan conquests in the seventh century, by
overthrowing the supremacy of orthodoxy, afforded great encouragement
to the Nestorians, as by denying that Mary was the mother of God, as
the Catholics maintained, the Nestorians in calling her the mother
of Christ more nearly approached the Mahometan conception of a pure
monotheism. Barsumas, or Barsaumas, bishop of Nisibis (435-485 A.D.),
was one of the most eminent leaders of the new heresy. He succeeded
in gaining many adherents in Persia. Maanes, bishop of Ardaschiv, was
his principal coadjutor; he was the means of propagating the Nestorian
doctrines in Egypt, Syria, Arabia, India, Tartary, and even China.


THE CALIPHS.

In the time of Mohammed himself (569-609), the Arabians had physicians
who had been educated in the Greek schools of medicine living amongst
them. Pococke mentions a Greek physician named Theodunus, who was in
the service of Hajáj Ibn Yúsuf in the seventh century. He wrote a sort
of medical compendium for the use of his son. Hajáj seems also to
have employed another Greek doctor named Theodocus, who had numerous
pupils.[679]

The House of Ommiyah encouraged the cultivation of the sciences. The
Caliph Moawiyah, who resided at Damascus, founded schools, libraries,
and observatories there, and invited the learned of all nations,
especially Greeks, to settle there, and teach his people their arts and
sciences.[680]

In the seventh century, Alexandria under the rule of Islam was in
possession of many medical schools in which the principles of Galen
were taught.[681]

Alkinani, an Arabian Christian, who afterwards was converted to
Islamism, was chiefly instrumental in introducing medical teaching into
Antioch and Harran from Alexandria.[682]

The Caliph Almansor had studied astronomy. Almamon, the seventh of
the Abbassides, collected from Armenia, Syria, and Egypt all the
volumes of Grecian science he could obtain; they were translated into
Arabic, and his subjects were earnestly exhorted to study them. “He
was not ignorant,” says Abulpharagius, “that they are the elect of
God, His best and most useful servants, whose lives are devoted to
the improvement of their rational faculties.” Succeeding princes of
the line of Abbas, and their rivals the Fatimites of Africa and the
Ommiades of Spain, says Gibbon, were the patrons of the learned, “and
their emulation diffused the taste and the rewards of science from
Samarcand and Bochara to Fez and Cordova.”[683]

It was Almamon who caused the works of the fathers of Indian medical
science to be translated first into Persian and then into Arabic; thus
it was that the Saracens became familiar with the medical wisdom of
Susruta and Charaka in the eighth century of our era.[684]

Charaka is frequently mentioned in the Latin translations of Avicenna
(Ibn Sina), Rhazes (Al Rasi), and Serapion (Ibn Serabi).[685]

Chaldee works at this time were also translated into Persian. In
the first centuries of the Hijra the Caliphs of Baghdad caused a
considerable number of works upon Hindu medicine to be translated into
Persian.[686] At the time of Mohammed there existed a famous school of
medicine at Senaa in Southern Arabia, the principal of which, Harit Ben
Kaldah, had learned his profession in India.[687]

When the son of Mesuach, a young Nestorian Christian, first entered
Baghdad, it is said[688] that he appeared to have discovered a new
world. He applied himself to the study of medicine, philosophy, and
astronomy. He became a “treasure of learning,” and was chosen to
attend Prince Almamon, the son of Haroun-al-Raschid, who, when he
became Caliph in 813, invited learned men of all religions and of all
nations to his court, collected from them the names of all the great
authors and the titles of their books which had been published in
Greek, Syriac, and Persian, and then sent to all parts of the world to
purchase them.

The Arabs studied Aristotle; and when Western Europe had long been
sunk in intellectual darkness and had forgotten him, the Saracens
taught him to the Christians of the West. “He was read at Samarcand
and at Lisbon,” says Freeman, “when no one knew his name at Oxford or
Edinburgh.”[689] In his own tongue at Constantinople and Thessalonica
he had never been forgotten. Such learning and science as the Saracens
did not receive from India, such as the Arabic numerals, came to them
from the West. They developed and improved much, but they probably
invented nothing. Freeman says[690] that after careful investigation
he observed three things: first, that whatever the Arabs learned was
from translations of Greek works; secondly, that they made use of only
an infinitesimal portion of Greek literature; thirdly, that many of
their most famous literary men were not Mahometans at all, but Jews or
Christians.[691] Greek poetry, history, and philosophy had little charm
for them. Gibbon says there is no record of an Arabian translation of
any Greek poet, orator, or historian.[692]

Learned Nestorians, Jacobites, and Jews in Persia and Syria occupied
themselves with translations from Greek authors, and contributed
greatly to the extension of Western culture in Eastern lands.[693] To
the world at large Mahomet was but an impostor; to the Arab of the
seventh century he was a true prophet and the greatest of benefactors.

When the Persian king reproached the Arabs with their poverty and their
savage condition, the reply of the Saracen envoy contains a grand
summary of the immediate results of Mahomet’s teaching.[694]

“Whatever thou hast said,” replied Sheikh Maghareh, “respecting the
former condition of the Arabs is true. Their food was green lizards;
they buried their infant daughters alive; nay, some of them feasted on
dead carcases and drank blood; while others slew their relations, and
thought themselves great and valiant, when by such an act they became
possessed of more property; they were clothed with hair garments; knew
not good from evil; and made no distinction between that which is
lawful and that which is unlawful. Such was our state. But God, in His
mercy, has sent us by a holy prophet a sacred volume, which teaches us
the true faith.”[695]

GEORGE BACKTISCHWAH, or BOCHT JESU, was a Greek physician, a descendant
of the persecuted Christians of the Greek empire, who embracing the
heresy of Nestorius had been compelled to fly for safety and peace
to the Persians. Al-Manzor (754-775) invited Backtischwah to his
court, and this physician was the first to present to the Arabians
translations of the medical works of the Greeks. The Nestorians had
founded a school of medicine in the province of Gondisapor, which was
already famous in the seventh century. From this school issued a crowd
of learned Nestorians and Jews, famous for their knowledge of medicine
and surgery, but still more for their ability to endow the East with
all the treasures of Greek literature.[696]


BAGHDAD.

The city of Baghdad was built by the Caliph Almansor, in A.D. 763, on
the ruins of a very ancient city; it soon became the most splendid
city in the East. Almansor had personally cultivated science, and
was a lover of letters and of learned men. He offered rewards for
translations of Greek authors on philosophy, astronomy, mathematics,
and medicine.

A college was established by the Caliph which ultimately became famous.
Public hospitals and a medical school were also established by the same
enlightened ruler. Meryon says[697] that there is reason to suppose
that in the laboratories established at Baghdad for the preparation of
medicines the science of chemistry may have first originated.[698]

The son of Mesuach presided over the translations of the works of Galen
and all the treatises of Aristotle into Arabic; but when they had
extracted the science from Greek literature, they consigned all the
rest of it to the flames, as dangerous to the Moslem faith.[699]

Many Christian physicians were employed at Baghdad.

The vizier of a Sultan gave two hundred thousand pieces of gold to
found a college at Baghdad, which he endowed with an annual revenue of
fifteen thousand dinars.[700] Under the reign of Haroun-al-Raschid and
his successors this school flourished vigorously, and many translations
of Greek medical works were made therein.

The Arabians have greatly distinguished themselves in the science of
medicine. In the city of Baghdad eight hundred and sixty physicians,
says Gibbon, were licensed to practise. The names of Mesua and Geber,
of Rhazis and Avicenna are not less famous than are those of the
greatest names amongst the Greeks themselves. The independent medical
literature of the Saracens arose in the ninth century, and gradually
developed till it reached the zenith of its glory in the eleventh.
The mosques were then the universities, and besides that of Baghdad,
Bassora, Cufa, Samarcand, Ispahan, Damascus, Bokhara, Firuzabad, and
Khurdistan, not omitting the schools of the Fatimites in Alexandria,
were centres of Eastern science and art, and the equally famous
universities of Cordova, Seville, Toledo, Almeria, Murcia, Granada,
and Valencia, sustained in Europe the dignity of the Arabian learning.
When the conquest of Africa was complete, Spain was invaded, and about
the year 713 was reduced to a Moslem province. Cordova became not less
distinguished for learning than Baghdad, and many writers were given
to the world from the adjacent towns of Malaga, Almeria, and Murcia.
Gibbon says that above seventy public libraries were opened in the
cities of Andalusia.

In the words of Professor Nicholl, “The Semitic race is essentially
unscientific, and adverse to the presentation of philosophical or moral
truth in a scientific form. The Indo-European genius, on the contrary,
tends irresistibly towards intellectual system, or science.” This will
at once be perceived when we examine the Vedas, the works of any Greek
author, or those of Teutonic speculative writers, and then turn to
any Semitic books. We instantly perceive that in the latter we have
nothing but belief or intuition, with more or less of the doctrine
of Revelation or Inspiration. In the works of Aryan origin, on the
contrary, we are at the opposite pole; we have speculation, inquiry,
an insatiable desire to solve the mystery of things—the analytical
spirit which asks a reason for every phenomenon in the universe. In the
Semitic races this resolves itself into either a living faith and a
pure life corresponding thereto, or into a reckless fanaticism founded
on fatalism. In the Aryan races we have the most daring intellectual
activity, or the driest dogmatism.[701]

It was in Spain that the Semitic and Aryan intellects met and happily
blended. Spain remembered the advantages of Roman influences long
after they were withdrawn. The Goths, who spread themselves over the
Peninsula, preserved the remains of the civilization which the Romans
had left; and the Jews, afterwards to be treated with such cruel and
base ingratitude by the nation which they had so greatly benefited,
advanced the cause of education by their numerous schools and learned
writers.[702]

On this stage, then, we find the Semitic and the Indo-Germanic races
transferring to each other the characteristics with which they were
most happily endowed by nature.

The mosque schools of the Arabians were conducted on the model of
the Alexandrian schools. The old Egyptian and Jewish colleges were to
some extent the prototypes of these, and some writers think that our
own universities were suggested by those of the Saracens. How great
and famous some of these must have been, may be learned from the fact
that, as we have stated, no less than six thousand professors and
students were collected together at Baghdad at one time. There were
lecture rooms, laboratories, hospitals, and residences for teachers and
students, besides the great halls which must have been required for the
vast libraries which the Caliphs collected. It was in Spain perhaps
that Saracenic learning shone most brilliantly. In the early part of
the eighth century was founded the noble university of Cordova, the
city which, under Arabian rule, was called the “Centre of Religion,
the Mother of Philosophers, the Light of Andalusia.” It contained 300
mosques, 200,000 houses, and 1,000,000 inhabitants, besides forty
hospitals.[703]

Abou-Ryan-el-Byrouny (died 941) travelled forty years studying
mineralogy, and his treatise on precious stones, says Sismondi,[704]
is a rich collection of facts. Aben-al-Beïthar of Malaga travelled
over all the mountains and plains of Europe in search of plants, and
rendered most important services to botany. He wandered over the sands
of Africa and the remotest countries of Asia, examining and collecting
animals, fossils, and vegetables, and published his observations in
three volumes, which contained more science than any naturalist had
previously recorded.[705]

In one sense the Arabians were the inventors of chemistry, and never
was the science applied to the arts of life more beneficially than by
the Saracens in Spain.

Mahomet was skilled in the knowledge of medicine, and certain of his
aphorisms are extant concerning the healing art. Gibbon says[706]
that the temperance and exercise his followers preached, deprived
the doctors of the greater part of their practice. The only medicine
recommended by the Koran is honey (see Surah xvi. 71). “From its (the
bee’s) belly cometh forth a fluid of varying hues, which yieldeth
medicine to man.” There is evidence of a belief in magic in the Koran
as a charm against evil, and of incantations capable of producing
ill consequences to those against whom they were directed. The 113th
chapter of the Koran was written when Mohammed believed that, by the
witchcraft of wicked persons, he had been afflicted with rheumatism.
Mohammedan peoples use as amulets to avert evil from themselves or
possessions, a small Koran encased in silk or leather, or some of the
names of God, or of the prophets or saints, or the Mohammedan creed
engraven on stone or silver.

Da’wah, or the system of incantation used by Mohammedans, is employed
to cause the cure, or the sickness and death of a person. The
Mohammedans have an elaborate system of exorcism, which is fully
explained by Mr. Thomas Patrick Hughes.[707]

Uroscopy, or the art of judging diseases by inspection of the urine,
was a great feature of Arabian as of Greek medical practice. It
was, however, with the former usually conducted with jugglery and
charlatanism, and there was seldom anything scientific about it.

As the religion of the Moslems forbade dissection, the sciences of
anatomy and physiology and the art of surgery remained as they were
borrowed from the Greek writers.

The Arabian faculty always stipulated for their fees beforehand; they
disapproved of gratuitous treatment, because, as they declared, “no one
gets even thanks for it!”

There must have been female doctors, who, in the East, had abundant
opportunities for practice, as men were not permitted by the customs of
the times to examine women. These female obstetricians performed the
gravest operations, such as embryotomy and lithotomy.[708]

Hospitals were established at Damascus for lepers, the poor, the blind,
and the sick, under the rule of the Caliph Walid.

Paper is an Arabic invention. True, it has been made from silk from
the remotest ages in China, but by the Arabs it was first made at
Samarcand, A.D. 649; and cotton paper, such as we use now, was made
at Mecca, A.D. 706. The art was soon afterwards introduced by the
Arabs into Spain, where it was brought to the highest perfection.[709]
Gunpowder was known to the Arabs a hundred years before Europeans
mention it.[710] The compass was used by them nearly two centuries
before the Italians and French used it. The number of Arabic inventions
which we unsuspectingly enjoy, without being aware of their origin,
is prodigious. Could we bring to light the literary treasures of the
Escurial, we should know something of the industrious host of Arabians
who have done so much for the learning of the Western world, and whose
names and deeds have received from us no recognition. Their historical,
geographical, and scientific dictionaries and histories would alone
entitle them to the gratitude of an age which would know how to
appreciate them.

Sismondi says that “Medicine and philosophy had even a greater number
of historians than the other sciences; and all these different works
were embodied in the historical dictionary of sciences compiled by
Mohammed-Aba-Abdallah, of Granada.”


THE GREAT ARABIAN PHYSICIANS.

HONAIN, a Christian physician, flourished at Baghdad in the middle of
the ninth century. He travelled in Greece that he might perfect himself
in the language, and he read the works of all the great writers of
that country. On his return to Baghdad he was invited by the Caliph
to undertake the translation of the Greek authors. His best known
translation is _The Aphorisms of Hippocrates with the Commentaries of
Galen_. He wrote on midwifery, and was a good oculist.

SERAPION THE ELDER (of Damascus), who flourished in the ninth century,
was a Syrian physician, of whom little or nothing is known except that
he wrote two works, one of which is in the Bodleian in MS., entitled
_Aphorismi magni momenti de Medicina Practica_. The other is entitled
_Kunnásh_, and has been translated into Latin.

The classical period of Arabian medicine begins with—

RHAZES, “the Arabic Galen,” whose real name was _Abú Becr Mohammed Ibn
Zacaríyá Ar-Razi_, was born at Rai, near Chorásán, probably about the
middle of the ninth century after Christ. His famous work, _On the
Small Pox and Measles_, was translated from the original Arabic into
Syriac, and from that language into Greek. This is the first extant
medical treatise in which the small-pox is certainly mentioned.[711]
This famous book has been published in various languages about
thirty-five times; a greater number of editions, says Dr. Greenhill,
than almost any other ancient medical treatise has passed through.
He was skilled in philosophy, astronomy, and music, as well as in
medicine, which he began to study when he was forty years old. He
became one of the most celebrated physicians of his time, and was
appointed physician to the hospital at Rai, and afterwards to that of
Baghdad, where he became so famous as a teacher that pupils flocked to
him from all parts. He afterwards resided at the court of Cordova. He
died at an advanced age about A.D. 932. More than two hundred titles
of his works have been preserved; but his small-pox treatise is the
only one which has been published in the original Arabic. It is a
remarkable and a very interesting fact that he explained the nature of
the small-pox and measles by the theory of fermentation.[712]

The largest work of Rhazes is _Al-Háwí_, or the _Comprehensive_ book,
commonly called “Continens.” In the Latin translation this fills two
folio volumes. Although little more than a sort of medical commonplace
book, it has a value in that it has preserved for us many fragments
from the works of ancient physicians which we should not otherwise have
possessed. Another important work of Rhazes is the _Ketábu-l-Mansúri_,
or _Liber ad Almansorem_, so called from being dedicated to Mansur,
prince of Chorásán. It was intended to instruct the physician in
everything which it was necessary for him to know. It is chiefly a
compilation, but was a popular text-book in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries. Rhazes taught the external use of arsenic, mercurial
ointments, and sulphate of copper, and the internal use of brandy,
nitre, borax, coral, and gems.

ALI BEN EL ABBAS (Ali Abbas), who lived in the latter part of the
tenth century, was a Persian physician, who wrote a medical text book,
entitled the _Royal Book_. Up to the time of Avicenna, this was the
standard authority on medicine amongst the Arabs, and was several times
translated into Latin. In the theory of medicine and partly in its
practice he followed the Greeks, but imitated the use of the excellent
materia medica of the Arabs. He wrote also on ophthalmology and
obstetrics.

AVICENNA, or EBN SINA, was called “the Prince of Physicians,” and was
the greatest philosopher produced by the Arabs in the East. He was
born in the province of Bokhara, in 980 A.D. It is related that at the
age of sixteen he had learned all the science of a physician. Having
cured Prince Nouh of a serious malady, he became a court favourite.
After travelling for a while he composed his great work, the _Canon of
Medicine_, by which his name was made famous both in Asia and Europe
for several centuries. In the midst of the troubles of an adventurous
life, he wrote a hundred gigantic books, the greatest of which was the
_Al-Schefà_.

ISHAK BEN SOLEIMAN (830-940) wrote on dietetics, and is said to have
been the first to introduce senna.

SERAPION THE YOUNGER (about 1070). His work, _De Simplicibus
Medicamentis_, was published in Latin at Milan in 1473.

MESUE the younger (about 1015) was a pupil of Avicenna, and physician
to the court at Cairo. He rendered great services to pharmacy by
teaching the method of preparing extracts from medicinal plants.

ALBUCASIS was a skilful Arab physician, who wrote a work on surgery,
entitled _Al Tassrif_, which contains much ingenious matter on the
appliances of practical surgery. He died at Cordova about 1106. His
work treats of the application of the actual cautery, so much employed
by the Arabs, of ligation of arteries in continuity, of the danger
of amputating above the knee or elbow, of stitching the bowel with
threads scraped from the intestinal coat, operations for hare-lip and
cataract, and fistula by cutting, ligature and cautery. He advised
the use of silver catheters as now employed, in place of the copper
ones used previously. He recommended anatomy as a valuable aid to
surgery.[713]

AVENZOAR, one of the most famous of Arabian physicians, was born near
Seville in the latter part of the twelfth century. He was instructed in
medicine by his father, whose family had long been connected with the
healing art. He was the rational improver of Arabian medicine by the
rejection of useless theories, and asserted for medicine a place among
the advancing sciences of observation. He made it a constant practice
to analyse the medicines he used, so that he might acquaint himself
with their exact composition. He was loaded with favours by the prince
of Morocco, and died at the age of ninety-two in A.D. 1262.

EBN ALBAITHAR (died about 1197) was a Moorish Spaniard, renowned for
his medical and botanical science. He traversed many regions of the
west of Africa and Asia to enlarge his botanical knowledge. He passed
some years at the court of Saladin, and wrote on the _Virtues of
Plants_, and on poisons, metals, and animals.

AVERROES, or EBN ROSCH, was born at Cordova in 1126. He learned
theology, philosophy, and medicine from the great teachers of his
time. He was the greatest Arabian inquirer in the West, as Avicenna
was in the East. He exercised the greatest influence both in his own
and succeeding ages. He has been called “the Mohammedan Spinoza,”
having been a religious freethinker. The study of Aristotle awakened
in him a species of pantheism. He was more a philosopher than a
physician, but as he had made important observations in medicine, he
deserves a place amongst the heroes of the healing art. He was bitterly
persecuted amongst his co-religionists for treating the Koran as a
merely human work. He taught that the small-pox never attacks the
same person more than once. In practice he held very rational views
of the action of remedies, and taught that the work of the doctor was
chiefly to apply general principles to individual cases. He wrote
commentaries on Aristotle so famous as to have gained him the name of
“the Commentator.” He expounded the _Republic_ of Plato. He was a most
voluminous writer, and was considered by his contemporaries and by our
schoolmen as a prodigy of science.[714]

There is a very interesting account of the Indian physicians at
the court of Baghdad in a translation made from a MS. in the Rich
collection in the British Museum.[715] The history is from the work of
Ibn Abu Usaibiâh, who lived at the beginning of the thirteenth century
of our era.

Kankah the Indian was a great philosopher as well as a physician; he
investigated the properties of medicines “and the composition of the
heavenly bodies” (!).

Sanjahal, another learned Indian, wrote on medicine and astrology.
From the science of the stars he applied himself to the symptoms
of diseases, on which he wrote a book in ten chapters. He gave the
symptoms of four hundred and four diseases. He also wrote on _The
Imagination of Diseases_. Shánák wrote on poisons and the veterinary
art. Jawdar was a philosopher and a physician who wrote a book on
nativities. Mankah the Indian was learned in the art of medicine,
and “gentle in his method of treatment.” He lived in the days of
Haroun-al-Raschid.

Salih, son of Bolah the Indian, was “well skilled in treatment, and had
power and influence in the promotion of science.”

Kankah the Indian, says Prof. H. Wilson, was very celebrated in the
history of Arabian astronomy. He says that it is certain that the
astronomy and medicine of the Hindus were cultivated anteriorly to
those of the Greeks, by the Arabs of the eighth century. “It is
clear that the Charaka, the Susruta, the treatises called Nidán on
diagnosis, and others on poisons, diseases of women, and therapeutics,
all familiar to Hindu science, were translated and studied by the
Arabs in the days of Haroun and Mansur, either from the originals,
or translations made at a still earlier period into the language of
Persia.”[716]

We may conveniently mention here the famous Jew of Spain, Rabbi Moses
ben Maimon, or Maimonides (died 1198), a native of Cordova, who was
profoundly learned in mathematics, medicine, and other arts. He retired
to Egypt, where he wrote books on medicine, which were much read. He
advised his patients never to sleep in the daytime, and at night only
on the side. He recommended them not to retire to rest till three to
four hours after supper.[717]

Medical etiquette was rather strict. “Operations performed by the
hand, such as venesection, cauterization, and incision of arteries,
are not becoming a physician of respectability and consideration. They
are suitable for the physician’s assistants only. These servants of
the physician should also do other operations, such as incision of the
eyelids, removing the veins in the white of the eye, and the removal of
cataract. For an honourable physician nothing further is becoming than
to impart to the patient advice with reference to food and medicine.
Far be it from him to practise any operation with the hand. So say
we!”[718]

Dentistry was practised, but it was considered by the Arabs, as by the
Greek and Roman doctors, a very inferior branch of the profession,
and was, for the most part, as with ourselves, till very recently
relegated to uneducated persons. Midwifery also was, to a great
extent, neglected by the higher class of physicians. The Arabian
faculty esteemed most highly medicine proper, though pharmacy and
materia medica were especially studied. The professors were paid by
the State, and handsomely as a rule. Their text books were the works
of the Greek physicians, especially Hippocrates and Galen. A sort of
matriculation examination was required before a student could enter
the great schools, and he was subjected to professional examinations
(not very severe, presumably) before he was permitted to practise. The
Arabian physicians were usually men of the highest culture; not only
were they men of science, but of philosophy and literature also. Great
mystery was combined with Arabian medical practice; astrology was the
handmaid of medicine, and charms entered largely into therapeutics. The
physicians wrote prescriptions with purgative ink; so that “take this!”
was meant literally when the doctor gave the patient his prescription.
It had to be swallowed in due form.

Although the great civilizations of the East date their origins from
a period far more remote than those of the West, they have lagged
far behind the West in progress. Professor Freeman defines European
society as progressive, legal, monogamous, and, for the last fifteen
hundred years, a Christian society; the East he defines as stationary,
arbitrary, polygamous, and Mahometan.[719] The dominant note of
Oriental history is sameness; a monotony which enables us to read in
the story of to-day that which took place amongst Eastern peoples
a thousand years ago. The history of a single city of Europe is of
infinitely greater interest to the student of humanity and the history
of civilization than that of a whole nation of the East. The history
of Florence alone is of greater importance, from this point of view,
than that of all China. There is, however, one marvellous history, that
of Mahomet and his creed, which excels in interest that of any other
man of the Oriental nations. “Nowhere,” says Freeman, “in the history
of the world can we directly trace such mighty effects to the personal
agency of a single mortal.”[720]




CHAPTER III.

RISE OF THE MONASTERIES.

 Alchemy the parent of Chemistry.


Learning in Europe was greatly advanced by the foundation of the famous
monastery of Monte Cassino, by ST. BENEDICT, near Naples, in the year
529. The religious houses of this order, of which Monte Cassino was the
parent, were the means of sheltering in those troublous times the men
who devoted themselves to literature and secular learning, as well as
to the severities of the religious life. In these peaceful abodes men
learned how to make the desert blossom as the rose, agriculture and
other civilizing occupations were studied and successfully practised,
and from the sixth century to the ninth such medical knowledge as
existed in Europe chiefly emanated from these abodes of piety,
industry, and temperance. Missionaries issued from them to convert and
civilize the nations; and wherever the monks went, they acted as the
healers of the sick, as well as the spiritual advisers of the sinner.
Everywhere they cultivated medicinal plants, whose properties they
learned to understand; by interchange of thought and comparison of
opinions every monastery, with its constant going and coming of the
brethren, became an exchange of knowledge: the science of Spain was
carried to Italy, that of Italy to France and England, which in their
turn contributed to the general stock of information such items of
knowledge as they possessed. “If science,” says Schlegel,[721] “was
then of a very limited range, it was still quite proportioned to the
exigencies and intellectual cultivation of the age; for mankind cannot
transcend all the degrees of civilization by a single bound, but must
mount slowly and in succession its various grades.”

ALCUIN (735-804), the great reviver of learning in the eighth century,
was an ecclesiastic who instructed Charlemagne and his family in
rhetoric, logic, mathematics, and divinity. “France,” says a great
writer, “is indebted to Alcuin for all the polite learning it boasted
in that and the following ages. The universities of Paris, Tours,
Fulden, Soissons, and many others, owe to him their origin and
increase.” By the benefits he obtained from Charlemagne for the
Christian schools which he founded, education began to revive in
Europe, and by the Emperor’s command schools were established in every
convent and cathedral throughout his vast empire, wherein not clerics
alone, but the sons of the nobility who were destined for a secular
life, could receive the highest education at that time attainable. “The
monasteries became a kind of fortress in which civilization sheltered
itself under the banner of some saint; the culture of high intelligence
was preserved there, and philosophic truth was reborn there of
religious truth. Political truth, or liberty, found an exponent and a
defender in the monk, who searched into everything, said everything,
and feared nothing. Without the inviolability and the leisure of the
cloister, the books and the languages of the ancient world would never
have been transmitted to us, and the chain which connects the past with
the present would have been snapped. Astronomy, arithmetic, geometry,
civil law, physic and medicine, the profane authors, grammar, and
the _belles lettres_, all the arts, had a succession of professors
uninterrupted from the first days of Clovis down to the age when
the universities, themselves religious foundations, brought science
forth from the monasteries. To establish this fact it is enough to
name Alcuin, Anghilbert, Eginhard, Treghan, Loup de Terrières, Eric
d’Auxerre, Hincmar, Odo of Clugny, Cherbert, Abbon, Fulbert.”[722]


THE ORIGIN OF CHEMISTRY.

The great importance of the science of chemistry in its connection with
that of medicine, compels some allusion to its origin. Without question
alchemy was the forerunner of chemistry. Beginning in the search for
the means of transmuting base metals into gold, it ultimately endowed
us with a far more precious knowledge—the art of preparing many of our
most valuable medicines.

The first authentic account of alchemy is an edict of Diocletian about
A.D. 300, in which a diligent search is ordered to be made in Egypt
for all the ancient books which treated of the art of making gold and
silver, that they might be destroyed. This shows that the pursuit
must have been of great antiquity. Fable credits Solomon, Pythagoras,
and Hermes amongst its adepts. We find nothing more about it till its
revival by the Arabians some five or six hundred years later.[723]

The word _Alchemy_ is mentioned for the first time by the Byzantines.
The art of transmuting metals under the name of _Chemia_, is first
spoken of by Suidas, who wrote in the tenth century. The Byzantines
began to make chemical experiments about the seventh century; all
the books they quote were attributed to Hermes. What is known as the
Hermetic philosophy was synonymous with alchemy, but the books were
really the work of the monks of the period.[724]

The earliest works on alchemy which we possess are those of Geber of
Seville, who lived probably about the eighth or ninth century. His
works were entitled _Of the Search of Perfection_, _Of the Sum of
Perfection_, _Of the Invention of Verity_. He divided metals into the
more or less perfect, gold the most perfect, silver the next, etc. His
aim was to convert inferior metals into gold; that which should turn
base metals into gold would be also a universal medicine, would cure or
prevent diseases, prolong life, and make the body beautiful and strong.
The philosopher’s stone would embrace in itself all perfections.
Alchemy led to chemistry; it is even declared by some to have been the
mother of chemistry. Some have thought that without the hope of making
gold and other precious things, men would never have been inspired
to investigate the secrets of nature and sustained in the arduous
and often dangerous work of the chemist. But this is to take far too
low a view of the scientific mind in all ages. The search for truth,
the passion for investigating and interrogating nature has happily
never wholly depended upon mercenary motives, and men have devoted
their lives as ardently to scientific researches, by which they could
never have hoped to gain a single penny, as did those alchemists of
old, who bent over their crucibles in the vain search for the perfect
magistery.[725]

Gibbon says,[726] “The science of chemistry owes its origin and
improvement to the industry of the Saracens. They first invented and
named the alembic for the purposes of distillation, analysed the
substances of the three kingdoms of nature, tried the distinction and
affinities of alkalis and acids, and converted the poisonous minerals
into soft and salutary medicines.” Gibbon somewhat exaggerates.
Analysis and affinity were discovered at a much later period. It was
Europeans in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who advanced
chemical science towards its present high position.

NONNUS (10th century) wrote “a compendium of the whole art of
medicine,” in 290 chapters. It is a mere compilation, and the author
is only worthy of remembrance in medical history as the earliest Greek
medical writer who mentions distilled rose-water, an article originally
derived from the Arabians.




CHAPTER IV.

RISE OF THE UNIVERSITIES.

 School of Montpellier.—Divorce of Medicine from Surgery.


An important era in the history of medicine in Europe was the rise of
the universities. It is not possible to fix precisely the date of the
foundation of these great centres of learning, but we may sufficiently
for our purpose fix the twelfth century as approximately the period in
which Bologna, Montpellier, Oxford, Cambridge, and Paris were regularly
established.

Cambridge University took its rise in all probability somewhere in the
twelfth century, “originating in an effort on the part of the monks of
Ely to render a position of some military importance also a place of
education.”[727]

The most ancient universities in Europe are said to be those of
Bologna, Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, and Salamanca. The following dates
are approximate: Bologna, 1116; Oxford, 879; Cambridge, twelfth
century; Cordova, 968; Paris, 792, renovated 1200; Palenza, 1209,
removed to Salamanca, 1249. Salamanca was founded 1239; Naples, 1224;
Montpellier, 1289; Rome, 1243; Salerno, 1233.[728]

The University of Bologna was famous as a school of law and letters so
early as the twelfth century. In the next it became distinguished for
its medical teaching. It was in such perfection that its professors
were classed as physicians, surgeons, barber surgeons, and oculists.
But still, anatomy, except in so far as it assisted the surgeon,
was neglected. Roger, Roland, Jamerio, Bruno, and Lanfranc, seemed
alone to have paid much attention to it, and then only to borrow from
Galen.[729] The medical faculty became celebrated after 1280, when
Thaddeus Florentinus was a teacher in it.

The University of Padua was founded 1179.

In 1268 it possessed three teachers of medicine and the same number of
teachers of natural science.

Montpellier was the first great rival of Salerno as a school of
medicine. Its charter dates from 1229.

Medicine was not taught at Paris during the twelfth century. John of
Salisbury, writing in the year 1160, says that those who desired to
study medicine had to go either to Salerno or Montpellier. But, says
Laurie,[730] physicians of eminence are recorded as having taught at
Paris after this date, and the subject was formally lectured upon not
later than 1200. Degrees or licences in physic were granted in 1231.

The University of Naples was founded in 1224, by the Emperor Frederick
II. Originally all the faculties were represented, but in 1231 medicine
was forbidden, as by Imperial decree it could only be taught at Salerno.

The University of Prague was founded in 1348 by Charles IV. of Bohemia,
as a complete university from the outset.


SCHOOL OF MONTPELLIER.

The origin of the medical school of Montpellier is obscure. Probably
it originated in the tenth century, and there is little doubt that
the Jews of Spain were concerned in its foundation. The Arabs found
firm friends in the Jewish people of Spain, their monotheism proving
a bond of union which ensured the sympathy of each, and the school of
Montpellier became the rallying-point of Arabian and Jewish learning.
Europe has rendered too little gratitude for the intellectual blessings
bestowed on her by the Hebrews. A nation of Eastern origin, and having
very extensive relations with Eastern commerce, the Israelites acted
as the medium for transmitting the intellectual and material wealth
of Eastern countries to Western peoples. We owe to them much of our
acquaintance with Saracenic medicine and pharmacy. They translated
for us Arabic books, and they introduced to Western markets the
precious drugs of far-distant Eastern lands. The school of medicine
of Montpellier first became famous in the beginning of the twelfth
century. Averroism prevailed, and a practical empirical spirit
distinguished the school from the dogmatic and scholastic teaching of
other universities. It has been attempted to show that a Jewish doctor
from Narbonne first taught medicine at Montpellier. When Benjamin of
Tudela went to the university in 1160, he says that he found many
Jews amongst the inhabitants. Adalbert, Bishop of Mayence, went to
Montpellier in 1137 to learn medicine from the doctors, “that he might
understand the deeply hidden meaning of things.” In 1153 the Archbishop
of Lyons went there for treatment, and John of Salisbury said that
medicine was to be acquired either at Salerno or Montpellier. Men
called the school the “Fountain of Medical Wisdom,” and it soon rose to
great importance on account of its unlimited freedom in teaching.[731]

Cardinal Conrad made a law that no one should act as a teacher of
medicine in the university who had not been examined in it and received
a licence to teach. In 1230 it was ordered that no one should practise
medicine until he had been examined, and that to the satisfaction of
two masters in medical science chosen as examiners by the bishop. To
engage in practice without the certificate of the examiners and the
bishop was to incur the sentence of excommunication.[732] Surgeons,
however, were not compelled to undergo examination. Medicine flourished
at Montpellier with great independence; it was not merged with the
other faculties, and it was not subjected to clerical influences.[733]
Even Louis XIV. was obliged to withdraw a decree ordering the union of
the medical with the other faculties.[734]

Every student was compelled (1308) to attend medical lectures for at
least five years, and to practise medicine for eight months, before
being allowed to graduate. In 1350 the degree of Magister had to be
taken in addition.[735]

The most brilliant period in the history of the medical school of
Montpellier was that of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Its
fame was sounded throughout the world. From all parts invalids went to
Montpellier to seek its famous physicians. King John of Bohemia, and
the Bishop of Hereford, were of the number.


DIVORCE OF MEDICINE FROM SURGERY.

Surgery became separated from medicine in Alexandria, but it was not
until the middle of the twelfth century that the ecclesiastics were
restrained from undertaking any bloody operations. The universities
rejected surgery under the pretext, “_ecclesia abhorret a sanguine_”
(the church abhors the shedding of blood). It is therefore to this
epoch, as Mr. Cooper says,[736] that we must refer the true separation
of medicine from surgery; the latter was entirely abandoned to the
ignorant laity.

At the Council of Tours, A.D. 1163, the practice of surgery was
denounced as unfit for the hands of priests and men of literature, the
consequence being that the surgeon became little better than a sort
of professional servant to the physician, the latter not only having
the sole privilege of prescribing internal medicines, but even that of
judging and directing when surgical operations should be performed.
Then the subordinate surgeon was only called upon to execute with his
knife, or his hand, duties which the more exalted physician did not
choose to undertake; and, in fact, he visited the patient, did what was
required to be done, and took his leave of the case, altogether under
the orders of his master.[737]

JOHN OF SALISBURY, one of the most learned men of the twelfth century,
gives an account of the state of medicine in that period, which is
very suggestive. “The professors of the theory of medicine are very
communicative; they will tell you all they know, and, perhaps, out
of their great kindness a little more. From them you may learn the
nature of all things, the causes of sickness and of health, how to
banish the one and how to preserve the other; for they can do both at
pleasure. They will describe to you minutely the origin, the beginning,
the progress, and the cure of all diseases. In a word, when I hear
them harangue, I am charmed; I think them not inferior to Mercury or
Æsculapius, and almost persuade myself that they can raise the dead.
There is only one thing that makes me hesitate. Their theories are as
directly opposite to one another as light and darkness. When I reflect
on this, I am a little staggered. Two contradictory propositions cannot
both be true. But what shall I say of the practical physicians? I must
say nothing amiss of them. It pleaseth God, for the punishment of my
sins, to suffer me to fall too frequently into their hands. They must
be soothed, and not exasperated. That I may not be treated roughly in
my next illness, I dare hardly allow myself to think in secret what
others speak aloud.”

In another work, however, the writer delivers himself with greater
freedom. Speaking of newly-fledged medicos, he says: “They soon return
from college, full of flimsy theories, to practise what they have
learned. Galen and Hippocrates are continually in their mouths. They
speak aphorisms on every subject, and make their hearers stare at their
long, unknown, and high-sounding words. The good people believe that
they can do anything, because they pretend to all things. They have
only two maxims which they never violate: never mind the poor, never
refuse money from the rich.”

ROBERT OF GLOUCESTER[738] does not write very highly of the skill
in surgery possessed by the Anglo-Normans. Speaking of the Duke of
Austria, who took King Richard the First prisoner, his verses import
that when “he fell off from his horse and sorely bruised his foot,
his physicians declared that if it was not immediately smitten off, he
would die; but none would undertake the performance of the operation;
till the Duke took a sharp axe, and bid the chamberlain strike it
off, and he smote thrice ere he could do it, putting the Duke to most
horrid torture. And Holinshed tells us that in the time of Henry the
Third there lived one Richard, surnamed Medicus, ‘a most learned
physician, and no less expert in philosophy and mathematics;’ but makes
not the least mention of surgery. Also some authors have attributed
the death of Richard the First (wounded in the shoulder at the Castle
of Chalezun), to the unskilfulness of those who had the care of the
wound, and not from the quarrel’s being poisoned, as others have
insinuated.”[739]

The university title of Doctor was not known in England before the
reign of Henry II.[740]

RICHARD FITZ-NIGEL, Bishop of London, was apothecary to Henry II. Many
bishops and dignitaries of the Church were physicians to kings and
princes.[741] Most of the practitioners of medicine and teachers of
physic were churchmen, either priests or monks.

ST. HILDEGARD (1098-1179), Abbess of Ruppertsberg, near Bingen on
the Rhine, was a famous physician and student of nature, who wrote a
treatise on Materia Medica. Her pharmacy was in advance of her time,
and to this eminent lady physician we are indebted for the attempts to
disguise the nastiness of physic; she enveloped the remedy in flour,
which was then made into pancakes and eaten.[742] Meyer says that her
work entitled _Physica_ “is a treatise on Materia Medica, unmistakably
founded on popular traditions.” Her visions and revelations concerning
physical and medical questions are contained in her work “_Divinorum
operum simplicis hominis liber_.” She was a true reformer within the
Church, and her pure life was singularly devoted and unselfish; she
was, in fact, a Woman Physician, who should be the patron saint of our
lady doctors.




CHAPTER V.

THE SCHOOL OF SALERNO.

 The Monks of Monte Cassino.—Clerical Influence at
 Salerno.—Charlemagne.—Arabian Medicine gradually
 supplanted the Græco-Latin Science.—Constantine the
 Carthaginian.—Archimatthæus.—Trotula.—Anatomy of the
 Pig.—Pharmacopœias.—The Four Masters.—Roger and Rolando.—The Emperor
 Frederick.


The connecting link between the ancient and the modern medicine was
the school of Salerno. It is true that Hippocrates and Galen in
Arabian costume re-entered Europe after a long absence in the East,
when the Moors occupied a great part of Spain; but great as was this
Saracenic influence on medical science, it was not to be compared with
the powerful and permanent influence secured by the native growth of
medical science which sprung up on Italian soil.

The origin of this celebrated mediæval institution is involved in
obscurity; it has been generally understood to have sprung from the
monastery of Monte Cassino, founded by St. Benedict in the sixth
century. St. Benedict probably possessed some medical knowledge, and
it is certain that many of his order did. The Benedictines had houses
in La Cava and Salerno. The legends of the wonderful cures wrought
by St. Benedict would naturally attract crowds of sufferers to the
doors of the learned and charitable monks. There would consequently be
abundant opportunities for the study of diseases and their remedies;
and though there was probably little enough of what could strictly be
called scientific medical practice, there was doubtless as much effort
to cure or mitigate suffering as was consistent with the rule of a
learned religious order. Some writers think that the famous school of
Salerno existed as early as the seventh century, that Greek thought
and traditions lingered there long after they had ceased to exist in
other parts of Italy; and they argue that as it was, as is now clearly
shown, a purely secular institution, it was independent in origin
and constitution of any monastic connection. Others maintain that
it was founded by the Arabs; but, as Daremberg points out,[743] the
first invasions of the Saracens in Sicily and Italy, dating from the
middle of the ninth century, had for their objects simply pillage and
slaughter; and there is nothing whatever to show in the whole course of
their devastations the slightest desire to found literary or scientific
institutions. The Saracens never sojourned at Salerno, and before the
end of the eleventh century there is no trace of Arabian medicine
in the works written by the great teachers of Salerno. It is as
unnecessary as it is unjust to seek any other origin for the Salernian
school than that of the Benedictines of Monte Cassino.[744] Bede,
Cuthbert, Auperth, and Paul were brought up at that monastery, and we
know that medicine was always cultivated to a certain extent in those
ancient abodes of learning and religion. As Balmez says concerning
Monte Cassino,[745] “the sons of the most illustrious families of the
empire are seen to come from all parts to that monastery; some with
the intention of remaining there for ever, others to receive a good
education, and some to carry back to the world a recollection of the
serious inspirations which the holy founder had received at Subiaco.”
It seems, therefore, that the origin of the medical school of Salerno
was somewhat on this wise: a lay spirit of science was developed, and
many young men having no aptitude for the monastic life, but desirous
to devote themselves entirely to the healing art as an honourable and
lucrative profession, doubtless desired to form themselves into a
society or school for this end; they would receive encouragement from
their more liberal and enlightened monastic teachers to settle in a
beautiful and healthy resort of invalids such as Salerno had long been
considered, and to pursue their medical studies under the supervision
of the men most competent to instruct them. Dr. Puschmann, quoting from
S. de Renzi,[746] states that in documents of the years 848 and 855,
JOSEPH and JOSHUA are named as doctors practising there. The Lombard
REGENIFRID lived there in the year 900; he was physician to Prince
WAIMAR of Salerno. Fifty years later the doctor PETRUS was raised to
the bishopric of Salerno. Many doctors of this time were clerics, but
there were also many who were Jews.[747] This ancient people, hated and
persecuted in every other relation of life, were popular as physicians
in the Middle Ages. The books studied and expounded were Hippocrates
and Galen, which were translated into Latin before A.D. 560.[748]

Its cosmopolitan sentiments probably gave rise to the story that is
told in an ancient Salernian chronicle, rediscovered by S. de Renzi,
to the effect that the school was founded by four doctors; namely, the
Jewish Rabbi ELINUS, the Greek PONTUS, the Saracen ADALA, and a native
of Salerno, who each lectured in his native tongue.[749]

It is said that Charlemagne in 802 A.D. greatly encouraged this Salerno
school by ordering Greek works of medicine to be translated from the
Arabic into Latin. Salernum, in consequence of the medical and public
instructions given by the monks in the neighbouring monastery, became
known as a _civitas Hippocratica_.[750]

BERTHARIUS, abbot from 856, was a very learned man; and it is stated
that there are still in existence two manuscripts of his which contain
a collection of hygienic and medicinal rules and prescriptions.[751]

ALPHANUS (SECUNDUS) (flourished about 1050), a distinguished monastic
philosopher and theologian, wrote a treatise on _The Union of the Soul
and Body_, and another on _The Four Humours_. He carried with him,
when he removed to Florence, many manuscripts and a great quantity
of medicines. During the eleventh century Salerno rose to great
importance, not only from its situation as a port from which the
Crusaders departed to the wars, but from the daily widening influence
of its medical school.

PETROCELLUS wrote on the practice of medicine about 1035; he was the
author of the _Compendium of Medicine_. GARIOPONTUS (died before
1056) wrote a work entitled _Passionarius Galeni_. These are the
two most ancient works of this school which have reached our times,
says Daremberg. The medicine of Salerno before the year 1050 was a
combination of methodism in its doctrines and of Galenisms in its
prescriptions.[752] We find, says Baas,[753] in Gariopontus the first
intimation of the inhalation of narcotic vapours in medicine, while
the ancients could only produce anæsthesia by compression and the
internal use of such drugs as mandragora and belladonna. Herodotus
says[754] that the Scythians used the vapour of hemp seed to intoxicate
themselves by inhaling it, but this was not for medicinal purposes.

DESIDERIUS was abbot of Salerno, and afterwards became Pope Victor III.
in 1085. He is said to have been _medicinæ peritissimus_.[755]

About this time flourished _Constantine_, the Carthaginian Christian,
whose fame was European, and who finally placed Salerno in the front as
a great and specialized public school of medicine. He travelled far in
the East, and is said to have learned mathematics, necromancy, and the
sciences in Babylon. He visited India and Egypt, and when he returned
to Carthage he was the most learned man of his time in all that
related to medical science. Naturally he was suspected of witchcraft,
and he fled for refuge to Salerno. Robert Guiscard the Norman held
him in the highest favour, and under his protection he published many
works of medicine of his own, and made many translations of medical
books from the Arabic. He ultimately retired to the monastery of Monte
Cassino, where he died in 1087. We may safely date the establishment
of the splendid reputation of the Salerno school from the time of his
settlement there.[756]

Daremberg does not allow that the influence of Constantine was so
great as is generally supposed. He points out that it was not in the
middle of the eleventh but at the end of the twelfth century that
Arabian medicine was substituted in the school of Salerno, as in the
West generally, for the Græco-Latin. And it is perfectly true that if
we examine the medical writings of this period we find very little
progress from the times of the ancients, except in pharmacy and the
knowledge of drugs and their properties. Daremberg’s researches go
to prove that many of Constantine’s works, previously supposed to
have been original, were but cunningly disguised translations from
the Arabic. By altering the phraseology, and suppressing such proper
names as would have led to suspicion of the origin of his treatises,
he obtained credit for a great mass of literary work which had really
another source.[757]

JEAN AFFLACIUS, a disciple of Constantine, wrote _The Golden Book on
the Treatment of Diseases_, and another work _On the Treatment of
Fevers_.[758] Daremberg says that these works of Afflacius show no more
traces of Arabian influence than the works of his contemporaries.

He advised that the air of the sick-room should be kept cool by the
evaporation of water, and he administered iron in enlargement of the
spleen.

ARCHIMATTHÆUS lived soon after Constantine; his name occurs about
the year 1100 as the author of two important books on medicine, _The
Instruction of the Physician_ and _The Practice_. The former work
is occupied with advice, sometimes exaggerated, on the dignity of
the healing art; and though it appears childish enough to our more
sophisticated age, it is not without evidence of a desire to instruct
the doctor in all that relates to the welfare of the patient and
the dangers incurred by any deviation from the strictest code of
professional rectitude. It is unfortunately, however, blended with so
much that is crafty and sly that it approaches in some directions very
closely to charlatanism. Archimatthæus very minutely instructs the
doctor how to comport himself when called to visit a patient.[759]

He should place himself under the protection of God and under the
care of the angel who accompanied Tobias. On the way to the patient’s
home he should take care to learn from the messenger sent for him the
state of the patient, so that he may be, on reaching the bedside,
well posted in all that concerns the case; then if, after he has
examined the urine and the state of the pulse, he is not able to
make an accurate diagnosis, he will at least be able, thanks to his
previous information, to impress the patient with the conviction that
he completely understands his case, and so will gain his confidence.
The author considers it very important that the sick person, before
the arrival of the physician, should send for a priest to hear his
confession, or at least promise to do so; for if the doctor were to
see reason to suggest this himself, it would give the patient cause to
suppose that his case was hopeless. “Upon entering the house of his
patient, the physician should salute all with a grave and modest air,
not exhibiting any eagerness, but seating himself to take breath; he
should praise the beauty of the situation,[760] the good arrangements
of the house, the generosity of the family; by this means he wins
the good opinion of the household, and gives the sick person time to
recover himself a little.” After the most careful directions as to
the examination of the patient, the author takes the doctor from the
house with as much artfulness as he has brought him hither. He is to
promise the patient a good recovery, but privately to the friends he
is to explain that the illness is a very serious one: “if he recovers,
your reputation is increased; if he succumbs, people will not fail
to remember that you foresaw the fatal termination of the disease.”
If he is asked to dine, “as is the custom,” he is to show himself
neither indiscreet nor over-nice. If the table is delicate, he is not
to become absorbed in its pleasures, but to leave the table every now
and then to see how the patient progresses, so as to show that he has
not been forgotten while the doctor was feasting. He is honestly to
demand his fee, and then go in peace, his heart content and his purse
full. In the _Practice_ of the same author, we have, says Daremberg,
a true _Clinic_, the first work of the kind since the _Epidemics_ of
Hippocrates; it exhibits a skilful practitioner, a good observer, and a
bold therapeutist. The doctrines and methods are those of Hippocrates
and Galen, but not of the Arabs. It is also interesting as proving
that at this period the distinction was established between the true
physicians and the common physicians, or the specialists and the
general practitioners or physician-apothecaries.

A remarkable and interesting feature in the history of the school of
Salerno is the fact that some of its most famous professors of medicine
were ladies. About the year 1059, TROTULA, a female physician, wrote a
well-known book on the diseases of women, and their treatment before,
during, and after labour. She discusses all branches of pathology, even
of the male sexual organs.[761] It was supposed that she was the wife
of John Platearius the elder, and that she belonged to the noble family
of Roger. Her person and name were at one time considered legend and
myth, but M. Renzi’s investigations have proved her to be sufficiently
historical. Trotula lived at Salerno, as is shown by the _Compendium
Salernitanum_, and she practised in that city, as is clear from her
work on the diseases of women. Her name occurs variously as Trotula,
Trotta, and Trocta.[762]

ABELLA wrote a treatise _De Natura Seminis Humani_; she was a colleague
of Trotula’s. COSTANZA CALENDA was the daughter of the principal of
the medical school, and was distinguished both for her beauty and her
talents; she left no writings. MERCURIADIS and REBECCA GUARNA were
doctresses of the fifteenth century. They wrote chiefly on midwifery
and diseases of women.[763]

COPHO, in the early part of the twelfth century, was an anatomist,
and probably a Jew; he wrote the _Anatomy of the Pig_. Students were
instructed in dissections by operating on dead animals when, as in
those days, human bodies were not accessible. The pig was killed by
severing the vessels of the neck, and was then hung up by the hind
legs, and when the blood had escaped the body was used for teaching
purposes; it was not dissected in the modern sense at all, the
examination consisting merely in observation of the great cavities and
the vital organs, according to the suggestions of Galen and the old
anatomists.[764]

NICHOLAS PRÆPOSITUS, about 1140, was the president of the school, and
wrote a famous book called the _Antidotarium_—a Pharmacopœia as we
should call it. This book of recipes was compiled from the works of
the Arabian doctors Mesues, Avicenna, Actuarius, Nicolaus Myrepsus, as
well as from Galen. It is interesting as giving the forms which the
compounders of the prescriptions were sworn on their oath to observe;
they promised to make up all their potions, syrups, etc., “_secundum
prædictam formam_,” and they further promised that their drugs should
be fresh and sufficient. It shows also that there was a habit of
writing a prescription when a patient was visited; this, it seems, was
a custom which originated with the Arabian physicians.[765]

Nicholas was also the author, says Dr. Baas,[766] of a work called
“_Quid pro Quo_,” which was a list of drugs which were equivalent to
other drugs, and might be used as substitutes for each other in case
of either running short. Dr. Baas says our expression “Quid pro Quo”
originated from this.

The writings of Bartholomæus and of Copho the Younger (between 1100
and 1120), says Daremberg, are of great interest in the history of
medicine; they show how great was the freedom of spirit which existed
at Salerno at this time. Copho described certain diseases which were
not referred to in the works of other writers of Salerno; for example,
ulceration of the palate and trachea, polypi, scrofulous tumours of
the throat, condylomata, etc. Bartholomæus and Copho also held certain
original ideas as to the classification of fevers. Copho distinguished
between medicine for the rich and for the poor: the rich are delicate,
and must be cured agreeably; the poor wish only to be cured at as
little cost as possible. Thus the nobles must be purged with finely
powdered rhubarb, the poor, with a decoction of mirobalanum, sweetened
or not. Naturally the more precious drugs would be used for the
wealthy, and probably the poor, who could not afford the complicated
and terrible confections of mediæval pharmacy, might have congratulated
themselves on being treated with a few simples instead of the precious
messes which the wealthy had to swallow.

JOHANNES PLATEARIUS deserves notice as having been the inventor of the
term “Cataracta,” in place of the ancient Egyptian “ascent” and the
Greek “hypochosis,” in classical Latin “suffusio humorum” (Hirsch).[767]

MATTHÆUS PLATEARIUS was the son of the above; he composed a _Practica
Brevis_ and other books on medicine; it is not certain at what precise
date they flourished.

ÆGIDIUS “CORBOLENSIS,” canon of Paris, physician to Philip Augustus,
king of France (1165-1213), wrote a poem on the decline of Salerno as
a medical school; he describes the doctors as caring nothing for books
which were not full of recipes, and the professors as merely beardless
boys.

The famous but somewhat mysterious “Four Masters” were commentators on
the surgery of Roger and Roland.

MUSANDINUS wrote on the diet of the sick; bleeding was recommended for
the want of appetite in convalescents, and patients were rather to be
purged to death than permitted to die constipated.

BERNARD THE PROVINCIAL recommends wine for the delicate stomachs
of bishops; he said they could not bear emetics unless they were
administered on a full stomach. His treatise was written between the
years 1150 and 1160. He did much to simplify the materia medica of his
time, advising the poor not to waste their means on costly foreign
drugs, but to gather simples from the fields. It is interesting to find
in the thirteenth century police regulations which required in many
cities of Italy that physicians should inspect druggists’ shops and
see that their medicines were pure and fresh. Pharmacy, it seems, was
already becoming divorced from medical practice.[768]

In the middle of the twelfth century there appeared a didactic poem
called _Schola Salernitana, Flos Medicinæ_, or _Regimen Sanitatis_,
or _Regimen Virile_. This celebrated work went through hundreds of
editions.[769]

Dr. Handerson, in his translation of Baas’ _History of Medicine_, says
it had other titles than those given above, as _Medicina Salernitana_,
_De Conservanda Bona Valetudine_, _Lilium Sanitatis_, _Compendium
Salernitanum_, etc. The work was for centuries the physician’s _vade
mecum_. It is not known who was the author; originally it was put forth
as emanating from “the whole school of Salerno to the king of England,”
namely, Robert, son of William the Conqueror, who was cured of a wound
at Salerno in 1101. The poem consisted of some two thousand lines.
Dr. Handerson gives the following translation of a few lines of this
curious work:—


    “Salerno’s school in conclave high unites,
    To counsel England’s king, and thus indites:
    If thou to health and vigour would’st attain,
    Shun mighty cares, all anger deem profane;
    From heavy suppers and much wine abstain;
    Nor trivial count it, after pompous fare,
    To rise from table and to take the air;
    Shun idle noonday slumbers, nor delay
    The urgent calls of nature to obey:
    These rules if thou wilt follow to the end,
    Thy life to greater length thou may’st extend.”

It has been translated into English by Thomas Paynell in 1530, by John
Harrington in 1607, and by Alexander Croke in 1830.

The poem is a composite work, and its form was doubtless adopted for
facility of committing to memory an important text-book of health rules.

ROGER, or RUGGIERO, known as Roger of Parma or of Palermo, lived about
1210, was a student, and for a long time a professor in Salerno. He
was a celebrated surgeon, who practised trepanning of the sternum and
stitching of the intestine. He was the first to describe a case of
hernia pulmonis, to use the term seton, and to prescribe the internal
use of sea-sponge for the removal of bronchocele.[770] He knew how to
arrest hæmorrhage by styptics, sutures, and ligatures.

He was the earliest special writer on surgery in Italy.[771] His later
editor ROLANDO exhibits an acquaintance with surgery, which shows
that, although the art had not been previously written upon in Italy,
it was very well understood at Salerno. De Renzi says that some of
the operations described are trephining, the removal of polypi from
the nose, resection of the lower jaw, the operation for hernia and
lithotomy. Malignant tumours of the rectum and uterus are referred
to.[772]

Salerno was the first school in Europe in which regular diplomas in
medicine were granted to students who had been duly instructed and had
passed an examination in accordance with the requirements of the legal
authorities. The great patron of Salerno, Frederick II., in the year
1240 confirmed the law of King Roger, passed in the year 1137, or as
some say in 1140, with reference to licences to practise medicine. That
ancient enactment was that, “Whoever from this time forth desires to
practise medicine must present himself before our officials and judges,
and be subject to their decision. Any one audacious enough to neglect
this shall be punished by imprisonment and confiscation of goods. This
decree has for its object the protection of the subjects of our kingdom
from the dangers arising from the ignorance of practitioners.”[773]

Frederick’s law was: “Since it is possible for a man to understand
medical science, only if he has previously learnt something of logic,
we ordain that no one shall be permitted to study medicine until he has
given his attention to logic for three years. After these three years
he may, if he wishes, proceed to the study of medicine. In this study
he must spend five years, during which period he must also acquire a
knowledge of surgery, for this forms a part of medicine. After this,
but not before, permission may be given him to practise, provided that
he passes the examination prescribed by the authorities and at the same
time produces a certificate showing that he has studied for the period
required by the law.” “The teachers must, during this period of five
years, expound in their lectures the genuine writings of Hippocrates
and Galen on the theory and practice of medicine.” “But even when the
prescribed five years of medical study are passed, the doctor should
not forthwith practise on his own account, but, for a full year more
he should habitually consult an older experienced practitioner in the
exercise of his profession.”

“We decree that in future no one is to assume the title of doctor, to
proceed to practise or to take medical charge, unless he has previously
been found competent in the judgment of teachers at a public meeting
in Salerno, has moreover by the testimony in writing of his teachers
and of our officials approved himself before us or our representatives
in respect of his worthiness and scientific maturity, and in pursuance
of this course has received the state-licence to practise. Whoever
transgresses this law, and ventures to practise without a licence, is
subject to punishment by confiscation of property and imprisonment
for a year.” “No surgeon shall be allowed to practise until he has
submitted certificates in writing of the teachers of the faculty of
medicine, that he has spent at least one year in the study of that part
of medical science which gives skill in the practice of surgery, that
in the colleges he has diligently and especially studied the anatomy of
the human body, and is also thoroughly experienced in the way in which
operations are successfully performed and healing is brought about
afterwards.”[774]

For centuries after this barbers in other countries practised surgery
without let or hindrance.

The doctor was bound to give advice to the poor gratis, and to
inform against apothecaries who did not make up his prescriptions in
accordance with the law. The doctor’s fee in the daytime within the
town was half a gold tarenus; outside the city he could demand from
three to four tareni, exclusive of his travelling expenses.[775]
Doctors were not permitted to keep drug-shops. Apothecaries were
obliged to compound the medicines in conformity with the doctor’s
prescriptions, and the price they charged was regulated by law.
Inspectors of drug-shops were appointed to visit and report. The
punishment of death was imposed on the officials who neglected their
duties.[776] These laws have served as the pattern for succeeding
enactments for the regulation of medical education and practice.

In 1252 King Conrad created the school of Salerno a university, but
King Manfred in 1258 by his restoration of Naples University left
Salerno only its medical school.

On the 29th of November, 1811, a decree of the French Government put an
end to the oldest school of medicine in Europe.

Daremberg concludes his admirable treatise on the school of Salerno
with a pathetic account of a visit which he made to that city in 1849;
he tells how he wandered through its streets, once so active with the
movements of the students and professors of the medical sciences, and
he laments that not a single remembrance of its illustrious masters
remains to remind the visitor of its ancient glories. Not a stone of
the edifices, not an echo of its traditions, not even a manuscript in
any library remains to remind us of the learned and venerable men and
women who did so much for medicine in those dark ages. A few years
back I visited Salerno myself, and I found not even a decent hotel in
which to remain a night or two. I rested at the best hostelry I could
find, and after dinner proposed to the friend who accompanied me, that
on the following day we should visit Pæstum and see its noble ruined
temples. As we chatted and turned over the pages of the visitors’ book,
we came across a long and doleful account of an Englishman who some few
years previously had visited Pæstum from Salerno, and was captured by
brigands; he was detained their prisoner for many weeks, and only at
last liberated, after threats of mutilation, by the payment of a heavy
ransom. We did not go to Pæstum; we left Salerno early the following
morning and went to Amalfi. The hotel was gloomy and crumbling into
decay, the rooms were all empty, the landlord was suggestive of the
host in some of the old stories of our boyish days. Thus has Salerno
fallen. Most travellers now make La Cava their headquarters, and do not
stay at Salerno at all.




CHAPTER VI.

THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.

 The Crusades.—Astrology.


The Crusades were of the highest importance to the development of
Western civilization; they brought the European world into contact
with the ancient wisdom of the East, they greatly stimulated commerce,
aroused a spirit of restlessness and inquiry, and thus enlarged men’s
minds, stimulated them to adventure and heroic deeds, improved the
art of war and the invention of arms, etc. By bringing the Crusaders
into contact with the Saracens many new medicines were introduced into
practice; physicians followed the armies to the East, and thus had
opportunities of studying the healing art as practised in the midst
of ancient civilizations. To a great extent the present advantages we
enjoy are due to the influence of the Crusades, which brought to Europe
many arts and sciences we should not have otherwise learned.

One of the evil consequences of the Crusades was the introduction into
Europe of epidemic diseases and contagious disorders which have always
had their home in the East. Thus were introduced the plague, leprosy,
and the disorders which are bred of filth and promiscuous living.

In the thirteenth century very few who possessed either medical or
surgical skill were not priests or monks, chiefly mendicants. The
profession became very lucrative, and so many monks devoted themselves
to the healing art that they neglected their spiritual duties, and were
consequently forbidden to leave their monasteries for a longer period
than two months at a time.[777] In this century astrology was closely
related to the practice of medicine. It was believed that an intimate
association existed between the heavenly bodies and those of men, and
no cure could be attempted without consulting the astrological oracle.

M. Jules Andrieu says that medical science, “like the other
sciences, began by being astrological. The first encyclopædia was
astrology.”[778] Certainly it was one of the modes most anciently
and universally practised for discovering the most important things
relating to the lives and fortunes of those who believed in it. It was
flattering to men to believe that the heavenly bodies are interested
in their welfare, and the events of life were awaited with resignation
and composure by those who believed they were regulated by the stars
in their courses; they applied themselves therefore to diagrams and
calculations to learn the simplest and most obvious details of their
lives.

M. Littré, member of the Institute and the Academy of Medicine at
Paris, in his _Fragment de Médecine Rétrospective_,[779] describes
seven “miracles” which took place in France at the end of the
thirteenth century at the tomb of St. Louis. He states the simple
facts as written in the chronicles of the period. He does not dispute
them, does not ridicule nor ignore them, but endeavours to give a
pathological interpretation of them. He notices in the first place that
at the moment of cure the patient felt a sharp pain—the part affected
seemed to be stretched or touched, and sometimes a sort of cracking
sensation in the bone was experienced, then movements became possible,
although the lengthening of the limb and the possibility of moving it
freely were not experienced immediately; the cure was not so sudden, a
period of weakness, long or short, always followed the miracle, and the
part only gradually regained its use. The cracking of the bone is just
what the surgeon finds when he moves a joint which has become fixed by
disuse; without breaking down these adhesions, he can do nothing to
restore the articulation. In cases of rheumatic paralysis a similar
state of things is observed. Of course in the accounts of the healing
at the tomb of St. Louis we expect to find errors and exaggerations
due to the preoccupation and ignorance of those who wrote the reports,
but we at once recognise the cracking and the pain as genuine
pathological details; we should not expect a natural cure without
these symptoms. To what shall we attribute them? M. Littré gives the
explanation in the words of M. le docteur Onimus, published in _La
Philosophic positive sur la Vibration nerveuse_.[780] The ascending
action or vibration expresses the influence of the physical on the
moral; the descending action or vibration expresses the influence of
the moral on the physical. In these cases it is the descending action
which we have to consider. This action is exerted on the muscular
portion of the affected part; it contracts energetically; it breaks
down the pathological adhesions if they exist; it restores the bones
violently to their place; this done, the patient is in a condition to
use the limb, but not without passing through a period of debility
which requires time for recovery. It is a violent extension produced
by muscular contractions. Surgery has frequently to break down such
adhesions and destroy false anchyloses. Here the force is not exerted
by a strange hand, but by an influence which is exerted on the muscles
themselves, and this in a far more beneficent manner than surgery can
afford. What is the exciting cause of these energetic contractions?
That which we find in all miracles of this sort—a strong persuasion, a
complete confidence. Under a profound emotion born of these sentiments,
the patient, feeling that the cure was in the extension of the part,
had a belief which he could understand. Of course such faith is not
possible in every case. On one side there must be the mental condition
which can receive in its fulness the emotion born of persuasion and
confidence, and on the other that the lesions must be susceptible of
cure. To a certain degree there are lesions which escape all this sort
of treatment. Herbert Spencer points out[781] that muscular power fails
with flagging emotions or desires which lapse into indifference, and
conversely that intense feeling or passion confers a great increase in
muscular force. It is brain and feeling generated by the mind which
give strength to the person who thinks strongly.

ALBERTUS MAGNUS (1193-1280), one of the greatest of the schoolmen,
combined with his religious speculations so great a knowledge of
physical science and mechanics that he was reputed as a sorcerer. He
constructed automata, some of which could speak; wrote on anatomy,
physiology, botany, chemistry, astronomy, magnetism, acclimatization
of plants and animals, etc. He digested, interpreted, and systematized
the whole of the writings of Aristotle in accordance with the teaching
of the Church. He was called, not only “Albert the Great,” but “the
Universal doctor.” To his labours and those of THOMAS AQUINAS may be
explained the reverence for ARISTOTLE entertained by the clergy of the
Roman and Anglican churches even to the present day.

THOMAS AQUINAS (1225 _circ._-1274), was the great Dominican theologian
who wrote the _Summa Theologiæ_. In his famous work he incidentally
dealt with medical and physiological questions. The source of all
motion is the heart. The soul is created anew in each conception.
Moisture, heat, and æther alone are necessary for the generation of an
individual; the lower animals originate even from putrefying matter. He
wrote commentaries on the works of Aristotle, and derived many of his
scientific ideas from this great master. The biology of St. Thomas, as
may be imagined, is exceedingly feeble, yet it too often forms the only
knowledge of the subject which continental clergymen possess.

RAYMOND LULLI (1235-1315) was a man of great intellect, who sought the
secrets of transmutation of metals and the philosopher’s stone. He
was a bold thinker, an astrologer, and a physician of great repute.
Naturally he was accused of magic. His acquaintance with the Arabians
directed his mind to the study of chemistry. He wrote on medical
subjects, the titles of his best known works being _De Pulsibus et
Urinis_, _De Medicina Theorica et Practica_, _De Aquis et Oleis_.

ROGER BACON (1214-1298). By theologians he was believed to be in
league with the devil, because of his belief in astrology and his
scientific attainments. It is probable that his reputed invention of
certain optical instruments was really due to his acquaintance with
Arabic, as the Arabians were familiar with the camera, burning glass,
and microscope, which have been attributed to him. Neither is it the
fact that he invented gunpowder, as is usually supposed. Bacon wrote
voluminously on theology, philosophy, and science. Although he believed
in astrology and the philospher’s stone, he had a true scientific idea
of the value of experiment, which forcibly reminds us of the Francis
Bacon which future ages would reveal.

“Experimental science,” he said, “has three great prerogatives over
all other sciences: (1) it verifies their conclusions by direct
experiments; (2) it discovers truths which they could never reach; (3)
it investigates the secrets of nature, and opens to us a knowledge of
past and future.”[782] As an instance of his method, Bacon gives an
investigation into the phenomena of the rainbow, which is doubtless a
very remarkable example of inductive research.

Roger Bacon proved himself far in advance of his time by his insistence
of the supremacy of experiment. So different was his mental attitude in
this regard from the temper of his time that Whewell finds it difficult
to conceive how such a character could then exist.[783] He learned
much from Arabian writers, but certainly not from them did he learn
to emancipate himself from the bondage to Aristotle which everywhere
enslaved them. Doubtless he learned from Aristotle himself to call no
man master in science, for the Stagyrite declared that all knowledge
must come from observation, and that science must be collected from
facts by induction.[784] Probably the truth about Aristotle is that
Bacon’s objections were directed against the Latin translations of
the Greek philosopher, which were very bad ones. Of both Avicenna
and Averroes he speaks respectfully, and it is doubted whether any
passages in Bacon’s works can be construed into opposition to
Aristotle’s own authority.[785]

Wood says[786] that Roger Bacon was accounted the fourth in order of
the chief chemists the world had ever produced, their names being
(1) Hermes Trismegistus, the first chemist, (2) Geber, (3) Morienus
Romanus, (4) Roger Bacon, (5) Raymond Lulli, (6) Paracelsus.

Roger Bacon made such prodigious chemical experiments at Oxford and
Paris “that none could be convinced to the contrary but that he dealt
with the devil.”

JEAN PITARD (1228-1315) founded the surgical society in France,
which exercised a very important influence on the development of the
healing art in that country, under the title of the “College de Saint
Côme.”[787] At a time when surgery of the lower character was practised
by barbers, this important corporation of educated men broke off from
the inferior association and combined to form an academy of the higher
surgery.

PETER DE MAHARNCOURT was an Oxford student, so “excellent in chemical
experiments that he was instituted _Dominus Experimentorum_.”[788]
He not only worked in metallurgy, but interested himself in “the
experiments of old women, their charms, magical spells, and verses
that they used to repeat when they applied or gave anything to their
patients.”

NICHOLAS MYREPSUS (_circ._ A.D. 1250), “Actuarius,” _i.e._
physician-in-ordinary, wrote a vast work on materia medica, containing
2,656 prescriptions for every disease, real or imaginary, which
afflicts our race. He had studied at Salerno.

JOHN ACTUARIUS (_circ._ 1283) was a medical genius in advance of his
age. He wrote a useful materia medica and a treatise on the kidney
secretion, in which he explains the use of a graduated glass for
estimating the amount of sediments, which he classifies according to
their colours. He appeared, says Haeser, “like the last flickerings of
a dying flame” just before the Turks destroyed the glorious work of the
Greeks in the civilized world.

In Edward the First’s reign the king’s physician had twelve pence per
day for his expenses in visiting the Countess of Gloucester, the king’s
daughter, when she was ill.[789]

The art of poisoning was brought to considerable perfection in the
Middle Ages, and there is abundant evidence of the fact that women were
commonly agents in it.[790]

In Edward the Third’s reign the ladies of the household were both
nurses and doctors. Regular practitioners were few, and the mistress
of the house and her maidens were compelled to do the best they could
in their absence. Medicinal herbs were cultivated in every garden, and
were either dried or made into decoctions and kept ready for use. Many
of these fair practitioners were reputed to be very skilful in medical
practice. Chaucer, in the “Nonne-Prestes Tale,” has left a faithful
picture of the domestic medicine of the period in the character of Dame
Pertelot.




CHAPTER VII.

THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.

 Revival of Human Anatomy.—Famous Physicians of the Century.—Domestic
 Medicine in Chaucer.—Fellowship of the Barbers and Surgeons.—The Black
 Death.—The Dancing Mania.—Pharmacy.


REVIVAL OF HUMAN ANATOMY.

Brighter days dawned for medical science after the close of the
thirteenth century, up to which era the Saracenic learning prevailed.
While human dissections were impossible, the sciences of anatomy and
philosophy had made no advance beyond the point at which they were
left by Galen, and as he dissected only animals they were necessarily
left in a very imperfect state. It is not known precisely when human
dissection was revived; probably the school of Salerno, under the
influence of Frederick II., has a right to the honour. In 1308,
however, we find the senate of Venice decreeing that a body should be
dissected annually,[791] and it is known that such dissections took
place at Bologna in 1300. We have, however, nothing very definite on
the subject till a few years later. Italy gave birth to the first great
anatomist of Europe.

The father of modern anatomy was MONDINO, who taught in Bologna about
the year 1315. Under his cultivation “the science first began to rise
from the ashes in which it had been buried.”[792] His demonstrations of
the different parts of the human body at once attracted the notice of
the medical profession of Europe to the school of Bologna. He died in
1325. Though he had a penetrating faculty of observation, he was not
altogether original, as he copied Galen and the Arabians. He divided
the body into three cavities: the upper, containing the animal members;
the lower, the natural members; and the middle, the spiritual members.
His anatomy of the heart is wonderfully accurate, and he came very near
to the discovery of the circulation of the blood.[793] He described
seven pairs of nerves at the base of the brain, and was evidently
acquainted with the anatomy of that organ.

He is said to have had the assistance of a young lady, ALASSANDRA
GILIANI, as prosector. Anatomical demonstrations in those days were,
at the best, very imperfect. The demonstrator did not actually himself
dissect; this was done by a barber-surgeon with a razor, the lecturer
merely standing by and pointing out the objects of interest to the
students with his staff. Nor did the process occupy much time; four
lessons served to explain the mysteries of the human frame: the first
was on the abdomen, the second on the organs of the chest, the third
on the brain, and the fourth on the extremities.[794] The bodies were
buried, or placed in running or boiling water, to soften the tissues
and facilitate their examination. Dissections first took place at
Prague in 1348, Montpellier after 1376, Strasburg, 1517. In Italy,
sometimes, a condemned criminal was first stabbed in prison by the
executioner, and then conveyed at once to the dissecting room, for the
use of the doctors.

The most famous physicians of this period were:—

PETRUS APONO, or PIETRO OF ABANO (1250-1315), a famous physician, who
lived at Abano near Padua, and who had studied medicine and other
sciences at Padua and Paris. He travelled in Greece and other parts,
acquired a knowledge of the Greek language, and was a devoted student
of the works of Averroes. He endeavoured to mediate between the Arabian
and the Greek physicians in their controversies on medicine, and wrote
with that view his work, entitled the _Conciliator differentiarum
philosophorum et precipue medicorum_. He knew enough of physiology to
be aware that the brain is the source of the nerves, and the heart that
of all the blood-vessels. He meddled with astrology, and was accused of
practising magic, of possessing the philosopher’s stone. He was found
guilty on his second trial by the Inquisition; but as he died before
the trial was completed, he was merely burned in effigy.

JACOB DE DONDIS (1298-1359) was a physician, who was a professor at
Padua, and was famous as the author of an herbal with plates containing
descriptions of simple medicines.

ARNOLD OF VILLA NOVA (1235-1312), physician, alchemist, and astrologer,
did much to advance chemical science, and whose work, the _Breviarium
Practicæ_, is not a mere compilation. He advised his pupils, when they
failed to find out what was the matter with their patients, to declare
that there was “some obstruction of the liver,”—a practice much in
vogue even in the present day. He was the first to administer brandy,
which he called the elixir of life (Baas). He discovered the art of
preparing distilled spirits (Thomson).

Collections of medical cases first began to be preserved in an
intelligible form in the thirteenth century; they were called
_consilia_. Those by FULGINEUS (before 1348), by MONTAGNANA (died
1470), and by BAVERIUS DE BAVERIIS, of Imola (about 1450), are said to
be interesting.[795]

GORDONIUS was a Scottish professor at Montpellier, who in 1307 wrote
the _Practica seu Lilium Medicinæ_; it went through several editions,
and was translated into French and Hebrew.

SYLVATICUS (_ob._ 1342) wrote a sort of medical glossary and dictionary.

GILBERTUS ANGLICANUS (about 1290) wrote a compendium of medicine, also
called _Rosa Anglicana_, a work of European reputation, said to contain
good observations on leprosy.

JOHN OF GADDESDEN was an Oxford man and a court physician, who between
1305 and 1317 wrote the _Rosa Anglica seu Practica Medicinæ_,—a work
which, though of little merit, remained popular up to the sixteenth
century. Some of his remedies are very curious. For loss of memory
he prescribed the heart of a nightingale, and he was a firm believer
in the efficacy of the king’s touch for scrofula. For small-pox he
prescribed the following treatment, as soon as the eruption appeared:
“Cause the whole body of your patient to be wrapped in scarlet cloth,
or in any other red cloth, and command everything about the bed to
be made red. This is an excellent cure.” Again, for epilepsy, the
method of cure was as follows: “Because there are many children and
others afflicted with the epilepsy, who cannot take medicines, let the
following experiment be tried, which I have found to be effectual,
whether the patient was a demoniac, a lunatic, or an epileptic. When
the patient and his parents have fasted three days, let them conduct
him to a church. If he be of a proper age, and of his right senses, let
him confess. Then let him hear Mass on Friday, and also on Saturday.
On Sunday let a good and religious priest read over the head of the
patient, in the church, the gospel which is read in September, in the
time of vintage, after the feast of the Holy Cross. After this, let
the priest write the same gospel devoutly, and let the patient wear it
about his neck, and he shall be cured. The gospel is, ‘This kind goeth
not out but by prayer and fasting.’” These quotations are both from the
_Medical Rose_; and as the author was at the head of his profession,
numbered princes amongst his patients, and was extolled by writers of
the time, it doubtless fairly represents the practice of the period.
The medicine of the period embraced the demon theory of disease and the
belief in the efficacy of amulets, or more correctly of characts.


DOMESTIC MEDICINE IN CHAUCER’S TIME.

CHAUCER (1340-1400), in the _Nonnes Preestes Tale_, tells us how in his
time people took care of their health by attention to diet; and how,
when folk were sick, and doctors not handy, nor medicines to be had at
the chemist’s close by, the wise women were able, not only to prescribe
skilfully, but to supply the requisite medicines from their own store
or garden.

    “A poure widewe, somdel stoupen in age,
    Was whilom dwelling in a narwe cotage
    Beside a grove, stonding in a dale.

           *       *       *       *       *

    Hire diete was accordant to hire cote.
    Repletion ne made hire never sike;
    Attempre diete was all hire physike
    And exercise, & hertes suffisance.
    The goute let hire nothing for to dance,
    No apoplexie shente not hire hed,
    No win ne dranke she, neyther white ne red.

    ‘Now, sire,’ quod she, ‘whan we flee fro the bemes,
    For Goddes love, as take som laxatif;
    Up peril of my soule, & of my lif,
    I conseil you the best, I wol not lie.
    That both of coler, & of melancolie
    Ye purge you; and for ye shul not tarie,
    Though in this toun be non apotecarie,
    I shal myself two herbes techen you,
    That shal be for your hele, & for your prow;
    And in our yerde, the herbes shal I finde,
    The which han of hir propretee by kinde
    To purgen you benethe, & eke above.
    Sire, forgete not this for Goddes love;
    Ye ben ful colerike of complexion;
    Ware that the Sonne in his ascention
    Ne find you not replete of humours hote:
    And if it do, I dare wel lay a grote,
    That ye shul han a fever tertiane,
    Or elles an ague, that may be your bane.
    A day or two ye shal han digestives
    Of wormes, or ye take your laxatives,
    Of laureole, centaurie, & fumetere,
    Or elles of ellebor, that groweth there,
    Of catapuce, or of gaitre-beries,
    Or herbe ive growing in our yerd, that mery is;
    Picke hem right as they grow, and ete hem in.’”

Chaucer has indicated for us, in his Prologue to the _Canterbury
Tales_, who were the great medical authors studied by English
physicians of the period.

Besides Æsculapius, whose works certainly could not have reached the
“Doctour of Physicke,” he read Dioscorides, the famous writer on
Materia Medica (A.D. 40-90). Rufus (of Ephesus, about A.D. 50). Old
Hippocras = Hippocrates. Hali = Ali Abbas (died 994). Gallien = Galen.
Serapion; there were two, the elder and the younger. Rasis = Rhazes
(A.D. 850-923). Avicen = Avicenna (died 1170). Averriois = Averroes
(died 1198). Damascene = Janus Damascenus, _alias_ Mesue the elder
(780-857). Constantin = Constantinus Africanus (1018-1085). Bernard
= Bernardus Provincialis (about 1155). Gatisden = John of Gaddesden
(about 1305). Gilbertin = Gilbert of England (about 1290).

“His study was but little on the Bible,” says the poet, who also
intimates that as gold in physic is a cordial, he was partial to fees.


FELLOWSHIP OF BARBERS AND SURGEONS.

On the 10th of September, 1348, says Anthony à Wood,[796] “appeared
before Mr. John Northwode, D.D., Chancellor of the University of
Oxford, John Bradey, Barber, Richard Fell, Barber Surgeon, Thomas
Billye, Waferer, and with them the whole Company and Fellowship of
Barbers within the precincts of Oxford, and intending thenceforward to
join and bind themselves in amity and love, brought with them certain
ordinations and statutes drawn up in writings for the weal of the Craft
of Barbers, desiring the said Chancellor that he would peruse and
correct them, and when he had so done, to put the University seal to
them. Thus the Barbers of Oxford were formed into a Corporation, one of
their ordinations being that no man nor servant of the Craft of Barbers
or Surgery should reveal any _infirmity_ or _secret_ disease they have,
to their customers or patients. Of which, if any one should be found
guilty, then he was to pay 20_s._, whereof 6_s._ 8_d._ was to go to Our
Lady’s box, 6_s._ 8_d._ to the Chancellor, or in his absence, to the
Commissary, and 6._s._ 8_d._ to the Proctors.” The Barbers, Surgeons,
Waferers, and makers of singing bread were all of the same fellowship.
They all continued in one society till the year 1500, when the Cappers
or Knitters of Caps, sometimes called Capper-Hurrers, were united to
them.[797] In 1551 the Barbers and Waferers laid aside their charter
and took one in the name of the City; but Wood says they lived without
any ordination, statutes, or charter till 1675, when they received a
charter from the University.[798]


THE BLACK DEATH.

A great pestilence desolated Asia, Europe, and Africa in the fourteenth
century, which was known as _The Black Death_. Its origin was
oriental, and it was distinguished by boils and tumours of the glands,
accompanied by black spots. Many patients became stupefied and fell
into a deep sleep; they became speechless, their tongues were black,
and their thirst unquenchable. Their sufferings were so terrible that
many in despair committed suicide. Those who waited upon the sick
caught the disease, and in Constantinople many houses were bereft of
their last inhabitant. Guy de Chauliac, the physician (born about
1300), bravely defied the plague when it raged in Avignon for six or
eight weeks, although the form which it there assumed was distinguished
by the pestilential breath of the patients who expectorated blood,
so that the near vicinity of the persons who were sick was certain
death. The courageous de Chauliac, when all his colleagues had fled
the city, boldly and constantly assisted the sufferers. He saw the
plague twice in Avignon—in 1348, and twelve years later. Boccacio, who
was in Florence when it raged in that city, has described it in the
_Decameron_. No medicine brought relief; not only men, but animals
sickened with it and rapidly expired. Boccacio himself saw two hogs,
on the rags of a person who had died of the plague, fall dead, after
staggering a little as if they had been poisoned. Multitudes of other
animals fell victims to the epidemic in the same way. In France many
young and strong persons died as soon as they were struck, as if by
lightning. The plague spread over England with terrible rapidity. It
first broke out in the county of Dorset; advancing to Devonshire and
Somersetshire, it reached Bristol, Gloucester, Oxford, and London. The
annals of contemporaries record the awful fact that throughout the land
only a tenth of the population remained alive. The contagion spread
from England to Norway. Poland and Russia suffered later in a similar
manner, although the disease did not always manifest itself in the same
form in every case. Only two medical descriptions of the disease have
come down to us—one by GUY DE CHAULIAC, the other by RAYMOND CHALIN
DE VINARIO. Chauliac notices the fatal coughing of blood; Vinario in
addition describes fluxes of blood from the bowels, and bleeding at the
nose. What were the causes which produced so dreadful a plague, it is
impossible to discover with certainty.

Dr. Hecker, to whose work on the subject[799] I am indebted for
the information concerning it, says that “mighty revolutions in
the organism of the earth, of which we have credible information,
had preceded it. From China to the Atlantic the foundations of the
earth were shaken, throughout Asia and Europe the atmosphere was in
commotion, and endangered, by its baneful influence, both vegetable and
animal life.”

In 1337, 4,000,000 of people perished by famine in China in the
neighbourhood of Kiang alone. Floods, famines, and earthquakes were
frequent, both in Asia and Europe. In Cyprus a pestiferous wind
spread a poisonous odour before an earthquake shook the island to its
foundations, and many of the inhabitants fell down suddenly and expired
in dreadful agonies after inhaling the noxious gases. German chemists
state that a thick stinking mist advancing from the east spread over
Italy in thousands of places, and vast chasms opened in the earth which
exhaled the most noxious vapours.


THE DANCING MANIA.

In the year 1374 a strange delusion arose in Germany, a convulsion
infuriating the human frame, and afflicting the people for more than
two centuries. It was called the dance of St. John or of St. Vitus, and
those affected by it performed a wild dance while screaming and foaming
with fury. The sight of the afflicted communicated the mania to the
observers, and the demoniacal epidemic soon spread over the whole of
Germany and the neighbouring countries to the north-west.

Bands of men and women went about the streets forming circles hand in
hand, and danced madly for hours together, until they fell in a state
of exhaustion to the ground. They complained, when in this state, of
great oppression, and groaned as if in extreme pain, till they were
tightly bandaged round their waists with cloths, when they speedily
recovered. While dancing they were insensible to external impressions,
but their minds were in a condition of great exaltation, and they
saw in their fancies heavenly beings and visitants from the world of
spirits. At Aix-la Chapelle, at Cologne, and in 1418 at Strasburg, the
“Dancing Plague” infatuated the people by thousands.[800]

Hecker attributes the madness to the recollection of the crimes
committed by the people during the visitation of the Black Plague,
to the previous inundations, the wretched condition of the people of
Western and Southern Germany in consequence of the incessant feuds
of the barons, to hunger, bad food, and the insecurity of the times.
Dancing plagues had often occurred before; in 1237 more than a hundred
children were suddenly seized by it at Erfurt, and several other dates
are given by historians for similar occurrences. Physicians did not
attempt the cure of the malady, but left it to the priests, as it was
considered to be due to demoniacal possession.

Hecker says[801] that Paracelsus in the sixteenth century was the first
physician who made a study of St. Vitus’s dance. The great reformer
of medicine said: “We will not, however, admit that the saints have
power to inflict diseases, and that these ought to be named after them,
although many there are who, in their theology, lay great stress on
this supposition, ascribing them rather to God than to nature, which is
but idle talk. We dislike such nonsensical gossip, as is not supported
by symptoms, but only by faith, a thing which is not human, whereon the
gods themselves set no value.”


PHARMACY.

The drug dealers of the Middle Ages had little or no relationship to
our apothecaries and pharmacists.

The word _apotheca_ meant a store or warehouse, and its proprietor was
the _apothecarius_. From the word _apotheca_ the Italians derive their
_bottéga_, and the French their _boutique_, a shop. The thirteenth and
fourteenth century apothecary, therefore, was altogether a different
person from our own. It is probable that the Arabian physicians about
the time of Avenzoar, in the eleventh century, began to abandon to
druggists the business of compounding their prescriptions; the custom
would then have spread to Spain, Sicily, and South Italy, where the
Saracen possessions lay. This explains how so many Arabic terms became
introduced into chemical nomenclature, such as _alembic_. Persons
who prepared preserves, etc., were called _confectionarii_, and they
made up medicines, and those who kept medicine shops were called
_stationarii_. The physicians at Salerno had the inspection of the
_stationes_.

Beckmann finds no proof that physicians at that time sent their
prescriptions to the _stationes_ to be dispensed. He says: “It appears
rather that the _confectionarii_ prepared medicines from a general set
of prescriptions legally authorized, and that the physicians selected
from these medicines kept ready for use, such as they thought most
proper to be administered to their patients.”[802]




CHAPTER VIII.

THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

 Faith Healing.—Charms and Astrology in Medicine.—The Revival of
 Learning.—The Humanists.—Cabalism and Theology.—The Study of Natural
 History.—The Sweating Sickness.—Tarantism.—Quarantine.—High Position
 of Oxford University.


FAITH-HEALING.

Medicine in mediæval Christian history is simply the history of
miracles of healing wrought by saints or by their relics. Bede’s
_Ecclesiastical History_, for example, is full of saintly cures
and marvels of healing. The study of medical science under such
circumstances could have had but little encouragement. Doctors were but
of secondary importance where holy relics and saintly personages were
everywhere present to cure.

In the Catholic Church there are special saints who are invoked for
almost every sort of disease.

St. Agatha, against sore breast.

St. Agnan and St. Tignan, against scald head.

St. Anthony, against inflammations.

St. Apollonia, against toothache.

St. Avertin, against lunacy.

St. Benedict, against the stone, and also for poisons.

St. Blaise, against the quinsey, bones sticking in the throat, etc.

St. Christopher and St. Mark, against sudden death.

St. Clara, against sore eyes.

St. Erasmus, against the colic.

St. Eutrope, against dropsy.

St. Genow and St. Maur, against the gout.

St. Germanus, against children’s diseases.

St. Giles and St. Hyacinth, against sterility.

St. Hubert, against hydrophobia.

St. Job and St. Fiage, against syphilis.

St. John, against epilepsy and poison.

St. Lawrence, against diseases of the back and shoulders.

St. Liberius, against the stone and fistula.

St. Maine, against the scab.

St. Margaret and St. Edine, against danger in child-bed.

St. Martin, against the itch.

St. Marus, against palsy and convulsions.

St. Otilia and St. Juliana, against sore eyes and the headache.

St. Pernel, against the ague.

St. Petronilla, St. Apollonia, and St. Lucy, against the toothache.

—— and St. Genevieve, against fevers.

St. Phaire, against hæmorrhoids.

St. Quintam, against coughs.

St. Rochus and St. Sebastian, against the plague.

St. Romanus, against demoniacal possession.

St. Ruffin, against madness.

St. Sigismund, against fevers and agues.

St. Valentin, against epilepsy.

St. Venise, against chlorosis.

St. Vitus, against madness and poisons.

St. Wallia and Wallery, against the stone.

St. Wolfgang, against lameness.

Pettigrew[803] gives the above list, but probably it might be
considerably extended.


CHARMS AND ASTROLOGY.

A curious little MS. volume was discovered amongst the MSS. at Loseley,
which contained a Latin grammar, a Treatise on Astrology, various
medical recipes and precautions, with forms for making wills. It
had probably been a monk’s manual. The writing was the character of
the fifteenth century. Some of the medical recipes and astrological
precautions are said to be taken from “Master Galien (Galen), leche,”
thus:—“_For all manner of fevers._ Take iii drops of a woman’s mylke yt
norseth a knave childe, and do it in a hennes egge that ys sedentere
(or sitting), and let hym suppe it up when the evyl takes hym.—_For
hym—that may not slepe._ Take and wryte yese wordes into leves of
lether: Ismael! Ismael! adjuro te per Angelum Michaelum ut soporetur
homo iste; and lay this under his bed, so yt he wot not yerof, and
use it all-way lytell, and lytell, as he have nede yerto.” Under the
head,—“_Here begyneth ye waxingge of ye mone, and declareth in dyvers
tymes to let blode, whiche be gode._ In the furste begynynge of the
mone it is profetable to yche man to be letten blode; ye ix of the
mone, neyther be (by) nyght ne by day, it is not good.”[804]

One Simon Trippe, a physician, writing to a patient to excuse himself
for not being able to visit him, says: “As for my comming to you
upon Wensday next, verely my promise be past to an old pacient of
mine, a very good gentlewoman, one Mrs. Clerk, wch now lieth in great
extremity. I cannot possibly be with you till Thursday. On Fryday and
Saterday the signe wilbe in the heart; on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday,
in the stomake; during wch tyme it wilbe no good dealing with your
ordinary physicke untill Wensday come sevenight at the nearest, and
from that time forwards for 15 or 16 days passing good.”[805]

This is very similar to what we find in Bede’s _Ecclesiastical
History_, where (A.D. 686) “a holy Bishop having been asked to bless
a sick maiden, asked ‘when she had been bled?’ and being told that it
was on the fourth day of the moon, said: ‘You did very indiscreetly and
unskilfully to bleed her on the fourth day of the moon; for I remember
that Archbishop Theodore, of blessed memory, said that bleeding at that
time was very dangerous, when the light of the moon and the tide of the
ocean is increasing; and what can I do to the girl if she is like to
die?’”[806]

Holinshed says[807] that a lewd fellow, in the sixth year of Richard
the Second, “took upon him to be skilful in physick and astronomy,”
predicted that the rise of a “pestilent planet” would cause much
sickness and death amongst the people; but as the pestilence did not
appear, the fellow was punished severely. Stow records[808] that one
Roger Bolingbroke, in the second year of Henry the Sixth (1423), was
accused of necromancy and endeavouring by diabolical arts to consume
the king’s person. He was seized with all his instruments of magic
and set upon a scaffold in St. Paul’s Churchyard, where he abjured
his diabolical arts in the presence of the Archbishop of Canterbury
and many other prelates. The punishment for witchcraft was hanging or
burning alive.

Strutt says[809] that it was extremely dangerous in those days to
pretend to any supernatural knowledge; as every one believed in the
influence of malignant spirits, and that they were obedient to the call
of the necromancers. “No contagion could happen among the cattle of a
farmer, but the devil was the cause, and some conjurer was sought out;
so that if any wretched vagabonds of fortune-tellers could be found,
they were instantly accused of this horrid crime, and perhaps burnt
alive.”[810]


THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING.

POPE NICHOLAS V. (1389-1455) was a man of great intellectual
sympathies. He was not devoted to any one branch of learning, but
was “a well-informed _dillettante_, wandering at will wherever his
fancy led him.” Æneas Sylvius said of him: “From his youth he has
been initiated into all liberal arts; he is acquainted with all
philosophers, historians, poets, cosmographers, and theologians; and
is no stranger to civil and canon law, or even to medicine.” He was
the patron of scholars, and was equally devoted to ecclesiastical and
profane literature. Although he was the son of a physician, it is
not true that he was ever one himself, as has been stated.[811] It
is pleasant, however, to reflect that this pope, whose name is most
intimately associated with the revival of learning, probably imbibed
much of the scientific lore of his time which his father’s profession
would encourage, and that taste for learning and that liberal spirit
which has always been associated with the medical profession. The
Humanists—as those who devoted themselves to the Humanities, such as
philology, rhetoric, poetry, and the study of the ancient classes, were
called—found a friendly reception at the papal court.

NICHOLAS OF CUSA was the reforming Cardinal Bishop of Brixen
(1401-1464). Giordano Bruno called him “the divine Cusanus.” In
physical science he was greatly in advance of his age, and he united
moral worth with intellectual gifts of the highest order.

POPE PIUS II., better known in literature as Æneas Sylvius, pope from
1458 to 1464, was also a great friend to the Humanists, a man of
great intellectual power. He stands forth in history as “the figure
in whom the mediæval and the modern spirit are most distinctly seen
to meet and blend,” ere the age of science begins to strangle the age
of superstition. Professor Creighton says that Pius II. is the first
writer “who consciously applied a scientific conception of history to
the explanation and arrangement of passing events.”[812]

LEONARDO DA VINCI (1452-1519), “the Faust of the Renaissance,” excelled
not only as an artist, but in all kinds of experimental investigation.
He was an anatomist, botanist, physiologist, and chemist. Had he
applied himself wholly to science, he would have been foremost in that
branch to which he devoted his wonderful energies. He was one of the
greatest and earliest of natural philosophers. He has been declared
to have been “the founder of the study of the anatomy and structural
classification of plants, the founder, or at least the chief reviver,
of the science of hydraulics—[the discoverer of] the molecular
composition of water, the motion of waves, and even the undulatory
theory of light and heat. He discovered the construction of the eye
and the optical laws of vision, and invented the camera obscura. He
investigated the composition of explosives and the application of steam
power.”[813]

MATTHEW DE GRADIBUS, of Fiuli, near Milan, in 1480 composed treatises
on the anatomy of the human body. He first described the ovaries of the
female correctly.

GABRIEL DE ZERBIS (about 1495), of Verona, an eminent but verbose
anatomist, dissected the human subject, and recognised the olfactory
nerves. He mentioned the oblique and circular muscular fibres of the
stomach.

ALEXANDER ACHILLINI (1463-1512), of Bologna, the pupil of Mondino, is
known in the history of anatomy as the first who described the two
bones of the ear (tympanal bones), the malleus and incus. In 1503
he showed that the tarsus (or ankle and instep bones) were seven in
number, so painfully and slowly was such a simple thing in human
anatomy settled in those times. He was more accurately acquainted with
the intestines than any of his predecessors.

CORNELIUS AGRIPPA (1486-1536) was born at Cologne, and was a profound
student of what is known as “Occult Philosophy,” a strange jumble
of astrology, alchemy, cabalism, theology, and the teaching of the
so-called “Hermetic Books.” This sort of thing has of late years again
become fashionable under the revived name of Theosophy.

He seems to have been sufficiently harmless; but as he knew much
more of physical science than was considered consistent with good
churchmanship in those times, he was persecuted by the monk Catilinet,
and was forced to fly from place to place.

JOHANN REUCHLIN (1455-1522) was the first great German humanist. His
services to learning were chiefly in connection with the restoration
of Hebrew and Greek letters in Germany. He worshipped truth as his
god, was interested in philosophy, especially in that of the Cabala,
in which he sought a theosophy which should reconcile science
with religion. His sentiments brought him into conflict with the
Inquisition, but by appeal to Rome, after a long and tedious process,
the trial was quashed; the consequence being that the lovers of
learning and progress banded themselves together against the opponents
of learning, and assured the progress of the principles of the
Renaissance in Germany. Reuchlin was the author of a celebrated work,
entitled _De Verbo Mirifico_.


THE SWEATING SICKNESS.

The disease known as the sweating sickness first made its appearance
in England in 1485, after the battle of Bosworth. It followed in
the rear of Henry’s victorious army, and spread in a few weeks from
Wales to the metropolis. It is described by Hecker[814] as being “a
violent inflammatory fever, which, after a short rigor, prostrated the
powers as with a blow; and amidst painful oppression at the stomach,
headache, and lethargic stupor, suffused the whole body with a fetid
perspiration.”

Holinshed[815] describes it thus: “Suddenlie a deadlie burning sweat so
assailed their bodies and distempered their blood with a most ardent
heat, that _scarce one amongst an hundred_ that sickened did escape
with life; for all in maner as soone as the sweat took them, or within
a short time after, yeelded the ghost. Two lord mayors and six aldermen
died within one week. Many who went to bed at night perfectly well
were dead on the following morning; the victims, for the most part,
were the robust and vigorous. One attack gave no security against a
second; many were seized even a third time.” The whole of England was
visited by this plague by the end of the year. When it reached Oxford,
professors and students fled in all directions, and the University was
entirely deserted for six weeks. Medicine afforded little or no relief.
Even Thomas Linacre, the founder of the Royal College of Physicians in
1518, does not in his writings say a word about the disease. As the
doctors failed to help the people, their common sense had to suffice
them in their need. They decided to take no violent medicine, but to
apply moderate heat; take little food and drink, and quietly wait for
twenty-four hours—the crisis of the disorder. “Those who were attacked
during the day, in order to avoid any chill, immediately went to bed in
their clothes; and those who sickened by night did not rise from their
beds in the morning; while all carefully avoided exposing to the air
even a hand or foot.”[816]

The five years preceding the outbreak of this epidemic had been
unusually wet, and inundations had been frequent. It is probable that
this was one of the causes which contributed to the unhealthy condition
of the atmosphere. The disease partook of the character of rheumatic
fever, with great disorder of the nervous system.[817] In addition to
the profuse and injurious perspiration, oppressed respiration, extreme
anxiety, nausea, and vomiting, indicating that the functions of the
eighth pair of nerves were disturbed, were the general symptoms of the
malady. A stupor and profound lethargy indicated cerebral disturbance,
possibly from a morbid condition of the blood.


TARANTISM.

Tarantism was a disease somewhat akin to the dancing mania. Nicholas
Perotti (1430-1480) first described it. It was believed to originate
from the bite of the Apulian spider, called the _tarantula_, as it was
named by the Romans. Those who were bitten, or who believed themselves
to have been bitten, became melancholic and stupefied, but greatly
sensible to the influence of music. As soon as they heard their
favourite melodies, they sprang up and danced till they sank exhausted
to the ground. Others became hysterical, and some even died in a
paroxysm of tears or laughter. By the close of the fifteenth century
Tarantism had spread beyond the boundaries of Apulia in which it
originated, and many other cities and villages of Italy were afflicted
with the mania. Thus when the spider made his appearance the merry
notes of the Tarantella resounded as the only cure for its bite, or the
mental poison received through the eye, and thus the _Tarantali_ cure
became established as a popular festival.[818]

       *       *       *       *       *

Quarantine, according to William Brownrigg, who wrote in 1771 a book on
the plague, was first established by the Venetians in 1484. Dr. Mead
was probably the source of this information.[819]

       *       *       *       *       *

Theories connected with the origin of the soul have continued to
occupy the attention of theologians, philosophers, and physicians from
the time of Pythagoras to our own day. Up to the ninth century their
speculations were entirely idle, when Theophilus made his discovery
of the capillary vessels of the male organs—a discovery which was
further developed when in the fifteenth century Mattheus de Gradibus
first enunciated the idea that these organs and the ovaria of birds are
homologous structures; and thus originated the knowledge of the germ
cells known as the ova of De Graaf.[820]

       *       *       *       *       *

The fame of the University of Oxford was so high in the early part of
the fifteenth century (1420) that a MS. in the Bodleian, quoted by
Anthony à Wood,[821] says that other universities were but little stars
in comparison with this sun. “Other studies excel in some particular
science, as Parys, in divinity; Bologna, law; Salerno, physick; and
Toulouse, mathematics; but Oxford as a true well of wisdom doth goe
beyond them in all these. The bright beams of its wisdom spread over
the whole world.”

The practice of medicine became daily more honourable.

Holinshed says,[822] in his description of the people in the
_Commonwealth of England_, that “Who soeur studieth the lawes of the
realme, who so abideth in the vniuersitie giuing his mind to his booke,
or professeth physicke and the liberall sciences—and can liue without
manuell labour, and thereto is able and will beare the port, charge and
countenance of a gentleman, he shall for monie haue a cote and armes
bestowed vpon him by heralds—and reputed for a gentleman euer after.”

Medicine was a flourishing study at Cambridge, especially at Merton
College, in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries.[823]

       *       *       *       *       *

The origin of syphilis in Europe has been the subject of much learned
discussion. It appeared with such violence and frequency in the year
1490 in France, Italy, and Spain, that the scourge was considered to
have only then been introduced into Europe from America.

“Its enormous prevalence in modern times,” says Dr. Creighton,[824]
“dates, without doubt, from the European libertinism of the latter
part of the fifteenth century.” It is pretty certain that syphilis
had existed in Europe from ancient times. What appeared with so much
virulence and such wide distribution in 1490 was simply a redevelopment
of the malady on a scale hitherto unknown.




CHAPTER IX.

MEDICINE IN ANCIENT MEXICO AND PERU.

 Hospitals in Mexico.—Anatomy and Human Sacrifices.—Midwives as
 Spiritual Mothers.—Circumcision.—Peru.—Discovery of Cinchona Bark.


Little or nothing is known of the ancient history of Mexico and Peru.
Mexico, anciently called Anahuac, was probably conquered by the Aztecs,
who founded the city of Mexico about 1325. It was discovered in 1517.
Peru was long governed by the Incas, said to be descended from Manco
Capac, who ruled in the eleventh century. It was explored and conquered
by Pizarro, 1524-1533.

For the purposes of this work the history of these countries dates from
the time of their discovery, as the Spaniards in their blind fanaticism
destroyed most of their literature. Don Juan de Zumarraga was one of
the darkeners of human intelligence; he diligently collected all the
Mexican manuscripts, especially from Tezcuco, the literary capital
of the Mexican empire, and burned them in one great bonfire in the
market-place of Tlatelolco.[825]

Las Casas says that there were public hospitals in the cities of
Mexico, Tlascala, and Cholula, expressly endowed for the relief of
the sick. As surgeons attended the Mexican armies, it is evident that
they had attained some skill in medicine and surgery. They used the
temazcalli, or vapour-bath, practised bleeding, and knew the medicinal
properties of many herbs. They professed to have learned this wisdom
from their ancestors, the Tultecas, whose knowledge of chemistry they
likewise extolled. As human sacrifices were of daily occurrence in the
city of Mexico, they must have acquired some knowledge of anatomy,
which would assist them in the practice of surgery.[826]

Midwives were treated by the ancient Mexicans with great deference.
They were termed “spiritual mothers,” and were believed to be under
the immediate inspiration of the god Tezcatlipoca. Aglio says that
the treatment of lying-in women was very similar to that among the
Jews.[827]

The ancient Mexicans practised circumcision, and venerated the
Tequepatl, or flint knife, with which the rite was performed.[828]

Among the many vegetable products which America introduced to Europe
were maize, potatoes, chocolate, tobacco, ipecacuanha, and Peruvian
bark, from which we obtain quinine. The discovery of this valuable
medicine was due to the Jesuit missionaries. The second wife of the
viceroy, the Count of Chinchon, accompanied him to Peru. In 1628 she
was attacked by a tertian fever. Her physician was unable to cure
her. At about the same time an Indian of Uritusinga, near Loxa, in
the government of Quito, had given some fever-curing bark to a Jesuit
missionary. He sent some of it to Torres Vasquez, who was rector of the
Jesuit College at Lima and confessor to the viceroy. Torres Vasquez
cured the vice-queen by administering doses of the bark.... The remedy
was long known as Countess’s Bark and Jesuit’s Bark, and Linnæus gave
the name _Chinchona_ [after the viceroy Chinchon] to the genus of
plants which produces it.... Various species of this precious tree are
found throughout the eastern cordillera of the Andes for a distance of
2,000 miles. We owe guaiacum, sarsaparilla, sassafras, logwood, jalap,
seneka, serpentaria, and many other valuable drugs to the same part of
the world.

Frezier, in his voyage to the South Sea and along the coasts of Chili
and Peru in the years 1712, 1713, and 1714, says concerning Lima:
“There is an herb called _Carapullo_, which grows like a tuft of
grass, and yields an ear, the decoction of which makes such as drink
it delirious for some days. The Indians make use of it to discover the
natural disposition of their children. All the time when it has its
operation, they place by them the tools of all such trades as they
may follow—as by a maiden, a spindle, wool, scissors, cloth, kitchen
furniture, etc.; and by a youth, accoutrements for a horse, awls,
hammers, etc.; and that tool they take most fancy to in their delirium,
is a certain indication of the trade they are fittest for, as I was
assured by a French surgeon, who was an eye-witness to this verity.”




                                BOOK V.

               _THE DAWN OF MODERN SCIENTIFIC MEDICINE._




CHAPTER I.

THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

 The Dawn of Modern Science.—The Reformation of
 Medicine.—Paracelsus—The Sceptics.—The Protestantism of
 Science.—Influenza.—Legal Recognition of Medicine in England.—The
 Barber-Surgeons.—The Sweating Sickness.—Origin of the Royal
 College of Physicians of London.—“Merry Andrew.”—Origin of St.
 Bartholomew’s Hospital.—Caius.—Low State of Midwifery.—The Great
 Continental Anatomists.—Vesalius.—Servetus.—Paré.—Influence of the
 Reformation.—The Rosicrucians.—Touching for the Evil.—Vivisection of
 Human Beings.—Origin of Legal Medicine.


The discovery of America in 1492 fitly typifies the still grander
mental world about to disclose its wonders to the newly liberated
minds of scientific investigators. The revolt against authority in
religion was paralleled by a scientific Protestantism; the mind of
man, long held in bondage to absurd and groundless fancies, struggled
to set itself free, to investigate, to test and explore on its
account, instead of accepting for granted doctrines elaborated in the
philosopher’s brains.

The revolt of medicine against the authority of Galen may be compared
to the revolt against Aristotle in philosophy. The authority of the
Arabian schools was overthrown, the principles of Hippocrates were
in the ascendant. The era of the Renaissance was not more an era of
Protestantism than an age of Scepticism. Faith had become credulity,
and credulity had sunk into imbecility. The power of the printing
press, the spread of humanism, the beginning of scientific inquiry,
the discovery of the splendid treasure of classic literature, long
buried beneath the dust of dark and barbarous ages, the widening of
the mental horizon as the world doubled itself before the prows of
the discoverers’ vessels—all these factors brought about the new
birth of Science. It was the golden age of the medical sciences.
Anatomy and surgery awoke, from their long slumber, and Europe
entered upon a period of scientific investigation such as the world
had never known before. Medicine formed an alliance with what are
called its accessory sciences; chemistry liberated from slavery to
the alchemist, botany set free from the delusions of the doctrine
of “signatures,” pharmacy elevated into a branch of medical science
from the kitchen and the confectioner’s store-room, lent their aid,
in conjunction with the hydraulics and pneumatics of the natural
philosopher, to advance it. All these things meant revolt against
the old order, Protestantism against the outworn creeds of Greek and
Arabian dogmatists. They meant more than this. Ere the ground could
be cleared for the new palace of physical science which the glorious
sixteenth century was to rear, scepticism must lend its withering
and desolating aid; foul undergrowths must be destroyed; evil germs,
bred of the stagnant marshes of the dark ages, must perish under the
wholesome, if ruthless, disinfectants of reason and unbelief. There
was a stern need of this. The demon theory of disease had lasted from
primeval ages up to this dawn of the sixteenth century. From glacial
times, through savage ages and religions, and often in beautifully
poetic faiths, the disease-demon held its own. Even in the hallowed and
renovating pages of the gospels the disease-demon stalks unchallenged
save by the thaumaturgist. Now he is to be banished from the mind of
civilized man for ever; and to reach this goal atheism was needed.
The sixteenth century, so far as medicine and physical science are
concerned, opens with the Cabalist Theosophists, Trithemius, Cornelius
Agrippa, Cardan, and their followers. Giordano Bruno, the aggressive
atheist and martyr of science, Montaigne, the philosophic sceptic,
Charron, the opponent of all religion, and Rabelais, the witty scoffer
at the gross corruptions of orthodoxy, helped to clear the ground for
the work of the scientists. Meanwhile Paracelsus, from his chair at
Basel University, having made an _auto-da-fe_ of ancient and dogmatic
medicine, lays the foundation-stone of the medicine of the modern era.

An army of savants begins to work for science as well as literature.
Linacre has introduced Italian Humanism to the doctors of England;
Caius busies himself with the Greek and Latin texts of the great
writers on medicine; Gesner, the German Pliny, and Aldrovandi promote
the study of natural history. Everywhere men are busy with the
beginnings of electricity, chemistry, mineralogy, botany, and the
other sciences which are to be the handmaidens of medicine. One clear
voice is heard from Basel. It is that of Paracelsus, exhuming physical
science: “You Italy, you Dalmatia, you Sarmatia, Athens, Greece,
Arabia, and Israel, follow me. Come out of the night of the mind!”

The teacher of Paracelsus, who exercised the greatest influence upon
his mental development, was the celebrated TRITHEMIUS, the abbot of
the Spanheim Benedictines (about 1500), who was so famous a student of
chemistry and the occult philosophy that scholars and mighty nobles
went on pilgrimages and princes sent ambassadors, to his monastery to
gather some fragments of his vast learning. Amongst many works, he
published several on magical subjects, and was the first who told the
wondrous story of Dr. Faustus, in whose magical doings he was a devout
believer.[829] His famous library consisted of the rare possession of
two thousand volumes. Cornelius Agrippa was his pupil, and in a letter
which he sent to his old master, with the manuscript of his _Occult
Philosophy_, we find a passage which throws a light on the studies of
the worthy abbot: “We conferred much about chemical matters, magic,
cabalism, and other things which at the present time lie hidden as
secret sciences and arts.”[830]

THEOPHRASTUS BOMBASTUS PARACELSUS OF HOHENHEIM (1493-1541), “The
Reformer of Medicine,” “Luther Alter,” effected a revolution in
medicine, and is one of the most remarkable characters, not only in
the history of the medical profession, but in that of civilization.
There was so much in this great man’s conduct to admire, and so much
of which to disapprove, that it is not surprising that he has been
either wholly praised or entirely condemned, and by very few considered
dispassionately. Perhaps Mr. Browning, in his noble poem _Paracelsus_,
has given the world the truest conception of a man who did for his
profession and for humanity the enormous service of liberating medicine
from a slavish adhesion to authority, though it must be admitted that
he was guilty of extravagances and excesses we may find it difficult to
excuse, even though for the most part they were faults common to his
country and his age. Paracelsus was born ten years later than Luther,
at Einsiedeln, near Zurich. He studied under the abbot Trithemius of
Spanheim, who was a great adept in magic, alchemy, and astrology.
Under this teacher he acquired a taste for occult studies, and formed
a determination to use them for the welfare of mankind. Trithemius
was a theosophist. As was the custom of the times, Paracelsus became
an itinerant student after his course at the University of Basel. He
studied chemistry in the laboratory of the Fuggers at Schwatz, in the
Tyrol.

Attached to the armies, he travelled widely as a military surgeon in
the Netherlands, the Romagna, Naples, Venice, Denmark. He worked in the
mines, that he might acquire a knowledge of metals, working as a common
labourer for his bread. In Bohemian fashion he wandered over the world,
visiting Spain, Portugal, Egypt, Tartary, and the East. He picked up
his scientific knowledge by any means rather than from books. He said,
“Reading never made a doctor, but practice is what forms a physician.
For all reading is a footstool to practice, and a mere feather broom.
He who meditates discovers something.” And so he held converse with
the common folk, and talked and drank with boors, shepherds, Jews,
gypsies, and tramps, gaining odd scraps of knowledge wherever he could.
He had no books. His only volume was Nature, whom he interrogated at
first-hand. He would rather learn medicine and surgery from an old
country nurse than from an university lecturer. If there was one thing
which he detested more than another, it was the principle of authority.
He bent his head to no man.

In the year 1525 Paracelsus went to Basel, where he was fortunate
in curing Froben, the great printer, by his laudanum, when he had
the gout. Froben was the friend of Erasmus, who was associated with
Œcolampadius, and soon after, upon the recommendation of Œcolampadius,
he was appointed by the city magnates a professor of physics, medicine,
and surgery, with a considerable salary; at the same time they made
him city physician, to the duties of which office he requested might
be added inspector of drug shops. This examination made the druggists
his bitterest enemies, as he detected their fraudulent practices; they
combined to set the other doctors of the city against him, and as these
were exceedingly jealous of his skill and success, poor Paracelsus
found himself in a hornet’s nest. We find him a professor at Basel
University in 1526. He has become famous as a physician, the medicines
which he has discovered he has successfully used in his practice; he
was now in the eyes of his patients at least,

    “The wondrous Paracelsus, life’s dispenser,
    Fate’s commissary, idol of the schools and courts.”

He began his lectures at Basel by lighting some sulphur in a chafing
dish, and burning the books of his great predecessors in the medical
art, Avicenna, Galen, and others, saying: “Sic vos ardebitis in
gehennâ.” He boasted that he had read no books for ten years, though
he protested that his shoe-buckles were more learned than the authors
whose works he had burned.

It must have been a wonderful spectacle when this new teacher took
his place before his pupils. The benches occupied hitherto by a dozen
or two of students were crowded with an eager audience anxious for
the new learning. Literature had been exhumed many years before, and
now it was the turn of Science! Leaving the morbid seclusion of the
cloisters, men had given up dreaming for inquiry, and baseless visions
for the acquisition of facts. This was the childhood of our science,
and its days were bright with the poetry of youth. It is a sight to
arouse our enthusiasm to see in the early dawn of our modern science
this man standing up alone to pit himself against the whole scientific
authority of his day. He rises from the crucibles and fires where his
predecessors had been vainly seeking for gold and silver, ever and
again pretending to have found them, and always going empty-handed to
a deluded world. Henceforth, he says, his alchemy shall serve a nobler
purpose than gold seeking; it shall aid in the healing of disease.
He casts aside the sacred books of medicine which have been handed
down the ages by his predecessors; destroying them, he declares, with
an earnestness which is less tinged by arrogance than by conviction,
that these men had been blind guides, that he alone has the clue of
the maze, and he forsakes all to follow Truth, though she lead him to
death. In his generous impulse to serve mankind he has spoken harshly
of his opponents. They would not have helped him, any way. He was above
them; they could not understand him, so they hated him, and he scorned
them. As too often happens to such heroes, he forgot the love of his
neighbour in his love for mankind.

Paracelsus found his pupils holding fast by the teachings of the school
of Salerno, and there seems no ground for supposing that the healing
art had made the slightest progress in Europe from the foundation
of that school in 1150, except perhaps in pharmacy. On the day that
Paracelsus stood up before his audience at Basel University, he cried,
“Away with Ætius, Oribasius, Galen, Rhasis, Serapion, Avicenna,
Averroes, and the other blocks!” He had diplomas sent him from Germany,
France, and Italy, and a letter from Erasmus.

In 1528 we find him at Colmar, in Alsatia. He has been driven by
priests and doctors from Basel.

He had been called to the bedside of some rich cleric who was ill.
He cured him, but so speedily that his fee was refused. Though not
at all a mercenary man (for he always gave the poor his services
gratuitously), he sued the priest; but the judge refused to interfere,
and Paracelsus used strong language to him, and had to fly to escape
punishment. We must not be too hard upon the canon. Disease was treated
with profound respect in those days, and great patients liked to be
cured with deliberation and some ceremonial.

The closing scenes of the life of Paracelsus were passed in a cell
in the hospital of Salzburg, in the year 1541, when he died at the
age of forty-eight, a martyr of science. Recent investigations in
contemporary records have proved that he had been attacked by the
servants of certain physicians who were his jealous enemies, and that
in consequence of a fall he sustained a fracture of the skull, which
proved fatal in a few days.

Within a period of time covering fifteen years he had written some 106
treatises on medicine, alchemy, natural history and philosophy, magic,
and other subjects. He despised University learning. “The book of
Nature,” he declared, “was that which the physician should read, and to
do so he must walk over its leaves.” His library consisted of a Bible,
St. Jerome on the Gospels, a volume on medicine, and seven manuscripts.
His epitaph tells but a part of his honours. “Here lies Philippus
Paracelsus, the famous doctor of medicine, who, by his wonderful art,
cured bad wounds, lepra, gout, dropsy, and other incurable diseases,
and to his own honour divided his possessions among the poor.”

This but feebly expresses what medicine owes to him. He discovered the
metal zinc, and hydrogen gas. In place of the elaborate concoctions
and filthy messes which were given as medicines in his time, he taught
doctors to give tinctures and quintessences of drugs. He invented
laudanum, and anticipated our discovery of transfusion of blood. He
opposed the barbarous method of reducing dislocations and dealing with
fractures, introduced the use of mercury in the treatment of syphilis,
and came very near to the discoveries which go under the name of
Darwinism. He taught that chemistry was to be employed, not in making
gold, but for the preparation of medicines; and he introduced into
practice mineral remedies, including mineral baths, iron, sulphur,
antimony, arsenic, gold, tin, lead, etc. Amongst the vegetable remedies
employed by him was arnica.

Paracelsus used chemical principles, says Sprengel, for the explanation
of particular diseases. “Most or all diseases, according to him, arise
from the effervescence of salts, from the combustion of sulphur, or
from the coagulation of mercury.”[831]

His ætiology attributed diseases to five causes:—1. The Ens astrale
(a certain power of the stars); this means no more than foul air. 2.
The Ens veneni (power of poison), arising from errors of assimilation
and digestion. 3. The Ens naturale (power of nature or of the body);
diatheses. 4. Ens spirituale (power of the spirit); the disorders which
arise from perverted ideas. 5. Ens Dei (power of God); the injuries or
causes of disease predetermined by God.[832]

When Paracelsus came upon the scene of medical history, alchemy had
just begun to lose its credit. The true students of science had
discovered its deceptions and had abandoned it to the quacks. It has
often happened, and happens still, that certain pretended sciences,
when cast aside as worthless, are taken from their hiding-places and
made to do duty in another and perhaps nobler form. Paracelsus set
himself the task of rehabilitating alchemy. The deeper thinkers,
the more ardent truth-seekers in religion and science, imbued with
philosophy and penetrated by the scholasticism of the age, were quite
ready for a new reign of theosophical medicine to take the place of the
Arabian polypharmacy.

GEORGE AGRICOLA (1494-1555) was a physician who practised in Bohemia,
and was the first to raise mineralogy to the dignity of a science. He
did so much for it, in fact, that no great advance was made in it from
the point at which he left it, till the eighteenth century.

CONRAD GESNER (1516-1565), surnamed the German Pliny, was a famous
naturalist of vast erudition, and imbued with an enthusiastic love
of science. In 1541 he was professor of physics and natural history
at Zurich. He wrote several books on ancient medicine and botany. To
prepare himself to write his _History of Animals_, he read 250 authors,
travelled nearly all over Europe, and gathered information from every
source, even from hunters and shepherds. His medical works show that he
was far above the absurd fancies and prejudices of his time.

ANDREAS CÆSALPINUS (1519-1603), the first systematical botanist, and
the founder of the work which Linnæus developed, studied, if he did
not also teach, anatomy and medicine at Pisa. He had a clear idea of
the circulation of the blood, at least through the lungs, and he was
the first to use the term “circulation.” Claims have been made on
his behalf as the discoverer of the circulation; but they cannot be
substantiated, as he did not know of the _direct_ flow of the blood
from the arteries to the veins.

CARDAN (1501-1576), a physician and astrologer, was also a half-crazy
magician. He was a skilful physician, and visited King Edward VI. to
calculate his nativity, and Cardinal Beaton to cure him in his sickness.

GIORDANO BRUNO (1548-1600) was an Italian philosopher of the
Renaissance, who, from a determination to study the universe for
himself, threw off the restraints of the Christian religion and
revolted against the authority of Aristotle and tradition. His most
popular and characteristic work is the _Spaccio_. He was not an
atheist, as has been asserted, but a pantheist. He considered the soul
of man as a thinking monad, and as immortal. He was burnt at the stake
for his opinions, which, it must be admitted, were in some respects
detrimental to morality as well as to faith.

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE (1533-1592), the sceptical founder of a new
philosophy, and one of the most delightful of essayists, anticipated
the scientific spirit by his minute and critical observation upon the
curious facts connected with human nature.

FRANÇOIS RABELAIS (_c._ 1490-1553) entered the faculty of medicine at
Montpellier.

EURICUS CORDUS (1486-1535), who studied medicine at Erfurt, is famous
for the following admirable epigram:—

    “Three faces wears the doctor: when first sought,
    An angel’s—and a God’s, the cure half wrought;
    But, when that cure complete, he seeks his fee,
    The Devil looks then less terrible than he.”

His son, VALERIUS CORDUS (1515-1544), was the discoverer of sulphuric
ether.

ANTONIO BENIVIENI (_c._ 1500), a physician of Florence, was the morning
star of a new era for surgery, when he insisted that the compilations
of the ancients and Arabians ought to be given up for the observation
of nature.[833] Thus, before the time of Ambroise Paré (1509-1590), the
way for the reception of the true modern surgery was prepared in Italy
by the efforts of those who strove to induce educated and talented men
to devote their attention to this branch of the healing art.


INFLUENZA.

A violent and extensive catarrhal fever prevailed in France and Europe
generally in 1510. Hecker considers there is evidence that it had its
origin in the remotest parts of the East.[834] His description of
this influenza is as follows: “The catarrhal symptoms, which, on the
appearance of disorders of this kind, usually form their commencement,
seem to have been quite thrown into the background by those of violent
rheumatism and inflammation. The patient was first seized with
giddiness and severe headache; then came on a shooting pain through the
shoulders and extending to the thighs. The loins, too, were affected
with intolerably painful dartings, during which an inflammatory fever
set in with delirium and violent excitement. In some the parotid glands
became inflamed, and even the digestive organs participated in the
deep-rooted malady; for those affected had, together with constant
oppression at the stomach, a great loathing for all animal food, and a
dislike even of wine. Among the poor as well as the rich many died, and
some quite suddenly, of this strange disease, in the treatment of which
the physicians shortened life not a little by their purgative treatment
and phlebotomy, seeking an excuse for their ignorance in the influence
of the constellations, and alleging that astral diseases were beyond
the reach of human art.”


LEGAL RECOGNITION OF MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS.

The first Act of Parliament dealing with the medical profession in
England was passed in the year 1511, and is entitled “AN ACT FOR THE
APPOINTING OF PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS,” the preamble of which runs as
follows:—

“Forasmuch as the science and cunning of Physick and Surgery (to the
perfect knowledge of which be requisite both great learning and ripe
experience) is daily within this realm exercised by a great multitude
of ignorant persons, of whom the greater part have no manner of insight
in the same, nor in any other kind of learning; some also can read no
letters on the book, so far forth that common artificers, as smiths,
weavers, and women, boldly and accustomably take upon them great cures,
and things of great difficulty, in the which they partly use sorcery
and witchcraft, partly apply such medicines unto the disease as be
very noxious, and nothing meet therefore, to the high displeasure of
God, great infamy to the faculty, and the grievous hurt, damage, and
destruction of many of the king’s liege people; most especially of them
that cannot discern the uncunning from the cunning. Be it therefore
(to the surety and comfort of all manner of people) by the authority
of this present Parliament enacted:—That no person within the city of
London, nor within seven miles of the same, take upon him to exercise
and occupy as a Physician or Surgeon except he be first examined,
approved, and admitted by the Bishop of London, or by the Dean of St.
Paul’s, for the time being, calling to him or them four Doctors of
Physic, and for Surgeons, other expert persons in that faculty; and
for the first examination such as they shall think convenient, and
afterwards alway four of them that have been so approved.[835] ...

“That no person out of the said city and precinct of seven miles
of the same, except he have been (as is aforesaid) approved in the
same, take upon him to exercise and occupy as a Physician or Surgeon,
in any diocese within this realm; but if he be first examined and
approved by the Bishop of the same diocese, or, he being out of the
diocese, by his vicar-general; either of them calling to them such
expert persons in the said faculties, as their discretion shall think
convenient....”[836]


THE BARBER-SURGEONS.

The occupation of shaving and trimming beards was anciently considered
a profession, and was united to that of surgery. In the reign of Louis
XIV. of France the hairdressers were formally separated from the
Barber-Surgeons, who were incorporated as a distinct medical body.

A London Company of Barbers was formed in 1308, and the first year
of the reign of Edward IV. (1462) the barbers were incorporated by a
charter which was confirmed by many succeeding monarchs. In 1540 the
Company of Barbers, and those who practised purely as Surgeons, were
united as “the commonalty of Barbers and Surgeons of London.” It was
enacted (32 Hen. VIII.) that “No person using any shaving or barbery
in London shall occupy any surgery, letting of blood, or other matter,
except only drawing of teeth.” The Surgeons’ corporation in London two
years later petitioned Parliament to be exempted from bearing arms
and serving on juries, so that they might be free to attend to their
practice.[837] Their petition was granted, and all medical men are in
the enjoyment of these privileges at the present time.

An Act of Parliament was passed in 1540 allowing the United Companies
of Barbers and Surgeons to have yearly four bodies of criminals for
purposes of dissection. This is supposed to have been the first
legislative enactment passed in any country for promoting the study of
anatomy.[838]

Surgery in England in the reign of Henry VIII. was in a deplorable
condition. Thomas Gale thus describes the surgeons of the time:—

“I remember when I was in the wars at Montreuil, in the time of
that most famous prince, Henry VIII., there was a great rabblement
there that took upon them to be surgeons. Some were sow-gelders,
and some horse-gelders, with tinkers and cobblers. This noble sect
did such great cures that they got themselves a perpetual name; for
like as Thessalus’ sect were called Thessalonians, so was this noble
rabblement, for their notorious cures, called dog-leeches; for in two
dressings they did commonly make their cures whole and sound for ever,
so that they felt neither heat nor cold, nor no manner of pain after.
But when the Duke of Norfolk, who was then general, understood how the
people did die, and that of small wounds, he sent for me and certain
other surgeons, commanding us to make search how these men came to
their death, whether it were by the grievousness of their wounds or
by the lack of knowledge of the surgeons; and we, according to our
commandment, made search through all the camp, and found many of the
same good fellows which took upon them the names of surgeons; not only
the names but the wages also. We asking of them whether they were
surgeons or no, they said they were; we demanded with whom they were
brought up, and they, with shameless faces, would answer, either with
one cunning man, or another, which was dead. Then we demanded of them
what chirurgery stuff they had to cure men withal; and they would show
us a pot or a box which they had in a budget, wherein was such trumpery
as they did use to grease horses’ heels withal, and laid upon scabbed
horses’ backs, with verval and such like. And others that were cobblers
and tinkers used shoemaker’s wax, with the rust of old pans, and made
therewith ‘a noble salve,’ as they did term it. But in the end this
worthy rabblement was committed to the Marshalsea, and threatened to be
hanged for their worthy deeds, except they would declare the truth—what
they were and of what occupations; and in the end they did confess, as
I have declared to you before.”

Gale says in another place: “I have, myself, in the time of King Henry
VIII., helped to furnish out of London, in one year, which served by
sea and land, three score and twelve surgeons, which were good workmen,
and well able to serve, and all Englishmen. At this present day there
are not thirty-four of all the whole company of Englishmen, and yet the
most part of them be in noblemen’s service, so that if we should have
need, I do not know where to find twelve sufficient men. What do I say?
sufficient men? Nay; I would there were ten amongst all the company
worthy to be called surgeons.”

In the year 1518 the Barbers and Surgeons were united in one company.
The Barbers were restricted from performing any surgical operations,
except drawing teeth, and the Surgeons, on their part, had to abandon
shaving and trimming beards. Physicians were permitted to practise
surgery.

In the year 1542 it became necessary to pass an Act to further
regulate the practice of Surgery, the chief points of which are the
following: “Whereas in the Parliament holden at Westminster, in the
third year of the King’s Most Gracious Reign, amongst other things,
for the avoiding of sorceries, witchcrafts, and other inconveniences,
it was enacted, That no person within the City of London, nor within
seven miles of the same, should take upon him to exercise and occupy
as Physician and Surgeon, except he be first examined, admitted, and
approved by the Bishop of London, etc.... Sithence the making of which
said Act, the Company and Fellowship of Surgeons of London, minding
onely their owne lucres, and nothing the profit or ease of the diseased
or patient, have sued, troubled, and vexed divers honest persons,
as well men as women, whom God hath endueed with the knowledge of
the nature, kind and operation of certain herbs, roots and waters,
and the using and ministering of them, to such as have been pained
with custumable diseases, as women’s breasts being sore, a pin and
the web in the eye, uncomes of the hands, scaldings, burnings, sore
mouths, the stone, stranguary, saucelin, and morphew, and such other
like diseases.... And yet the said persons have not taken anything
for their pains or cunning.... In consideration whereof, and for the
ease, comfort, succour, help, relief, and health of the King’s poor
subjects, inhabitants of this his realm, now pained or diseased, or
that hereafter shall be pained or diseased, Be it ordained, etc., that
at all time from henceforth it shall be lawful to every person being
the King’s subject, having knowledge and experience of the nature of
herbs, roots and waters, etc., to use and minister according to their
cunning, experience, and knowledge ... the aforesaid statute ... or any
other Act notwithstanding.”


THE SWEATING SICKNESS.

In 1517 England was visited by a third attack of the Sweating Sickness.
Public business was suspended, the King moved his court from place to
place, and a panic seized the people. Erasmus, writing to Wolsey’s
physician, says: “I am frequently astonished and grieved to think
how it is that England has been now for so many years troubled by a
continual pestilence, especially by a deadly sweat, which appears in a
great measure to be peculiar to your country. I have read how a city
was once delivered from a plague by a change in the houses, made at the
suggestion of a philosopher. I am inclined to think that this also must
be the deliverance for England.” He proceeds to suggest that better
ventilation is necessary for dwellings; he remarks that the glass
windows admit light, but not air; that such air as does enter comes in
as draughts, through holes and corners full of pestilential emanations.
The floors laid with clay and covered with rushes, the bottom
layer of which was unchanged sometimes for twenty years, harboured
expectorations, vomitings, filth, and all sorts of abominations.

He advises that the use of rushes should be given up, that the rooms
should be so built as to be exposed to the light and fresh air on two
or three sides, and that the windows be so constructed as to be easily
opened or closed. He declares that at one time, if he ever entered a
room which had not been occupied for some months, he was sure to take
a fever. He suggests that the people should eat less, especially of
salt meats, and that proper officers be appointed to keep the streets
and suburbs in better order. Erasmus was thus our first sanitary
reformer.

Aubrey gives[839] a selection of the favourite prescriptions in use at
this period against the Sweating Sickness:—

“Take endive, sowthistle, marygold, m’oney and nightshade, three
handfuls of all, and seethe them in conduit water, from a quart to a
pint, then strain it into a fair vessel, then delay it with a little
sugar to put away the tartness, and then drink it when the sweat taketh
you, and keep you warm; and by the grace of God ye shall be whole.”

“Take half an handful of rew, called herbe grace, an handful marygold,
half an handful featherfew, a handful sorrel, a handful burnet, and
half a handful dragons, the top in summer, the root in winter; wash
them in running water, and put them in an earthen pot with a pottle
of running water, and let them seethe soberly to nigh the half be
consumed, and then draw aback the pot to it be almost cold, and then
strain it into a fair glass and keep it close, and use thereof morn
and even, and when need is oftener; and if it be bitter, delay it with
sugar candy; and if it be taken afore the pimples break forth, there is
no doubt but with the grace of Jesu it shall amend any man, woman or
child.”

“Another very true medicine.—For to say every day at seven parts of
your body, seven paternosters, and seven Ave Marias, with one Credo at
the last. Ye shal begyn at the ryght syde, under the ryght ere, saying
the ‘_paternoster qui es in cœlis, sanctificetur nomen tuum_,’ with
a cross made there with your thumb, and so say the paternoster full
complete, and one Ave Maria, and then under the left ere, and then
under the left armhole, and then under the left the [thigh?] hole, and
then the last at the heart, with one paternoster, Ave Maria, with one
Credo; and these thus said daily, with the grace of God is there no
manner drede hym.”


THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS OF LONDON ESTABLISHED.

The Royal College of Physicians of London was founded by Henry VIII.
for the repression of irregular and unlearned medical practice. The
Letters Patent constituting the College were dated 23rd September,
1518. The king was moved to this by the example of similar institutions
in Italy and elsewhere, by the solicitations of Thomas Linacre, one of
his own physicians, and by the advice and recommendation of Cardinal
Wolsey. Six physicians are named in the Letters Patent as constituting
the College, viz., John Chambre, Thomas Linacre, and Ferdinand de
Victoria, the king’s physicians; and Nicholas Halsewell, John Francis,
and Robert Yaxlery, physicians, “and all men of the same faculty, of
and in London, and within seven miles thereof, are incorporated as one
body and perpetual community or college.”[840]

DR. CHAMBRE was a priest before he became a physician. He was educated
at Oxford, studied at Padua, where he graduated in physic.

DR. THOMAS LINACRE was a distinguished scholar and physician, who was
born A.D. 1460. In 1484 he was elected a fellow of All Souls’, Oxford;
the next year he went to Bologna, where he studied under Pulitian;
he then went to Florence, where he became acquainted with Lorenzo
the Great; from Florence, he went to Rome, and thence to Venice and
Padua, which at that time was the most celebrated school of physic in
the world, and took the degree of Doctor of Medicine with the highest
applause. Linacre founded (1524) two Physic Lectures at Oxford and one
at Cambridge, but “they were not performed till divers years after
Linacre’s death, on account of the troubles concerning religion.”[841]

DR. ANDREW BORDE, Carthusian monk, physician, wit and buffoon, lived in
the reign of Henry VIII. He took his physician’s degree at Montpellier
in 1532, and afterwards became one of the court physicians on his
return to England. He was a learned, genial, and sensible doctor,
but possessed “a rambling head and an inconstant mind,” as Anthony à
Wood says. He wrote voluminously. His chief works, the _Breviary of
Health_, _The Dietary of Health_, and _The Book of the Introduction to
Knowledge_, have been edited by Dr. F. J. Furnivall, and published for
the Early English Text Society in a volume which is one of the most
entertaining works on medicine ever written. Borde earned his title
of “Merry Andrew” (a name which has become a household word) from
attending fairs and revels, and conducting himself with the buffoonery
which ill became so learned a man. Doubtless, however, it endeared
him to his countrymen of the period. His medical works are full of
prescriptions for various complaints, and many of them are exceedingly
valuable and fully equal to the best treatment followed now.

THOMAS VICARY was probably born between 1490 and 1500, was not a
trained surgeon, but “a meane practiser” at Maidstone. In 1525 he was
junior of the three Wardens of the Barbers’ or Barber-Surgeons’ Company
in London. In 1528 he was Upper or First Warden of the Company,
and one of the surgeons to Henry VIII., at £20 a year. In 1530 he
was Master of the Barber-Surgeons’ Company, and at the head of his
profession till his death in 1561 or 1562. As Dr. Furnivall says, he
was “the Paget of his great Tudor time.” Soon after the dissolution of
the monasteries, Henry VIII., at the request of the City of London,
handed over the monastic hospitals, Bartholomew’s and others, to the
Corporation of London. He gave to Bartholomew’s a small endowment
(nominally £333 odd) out of old houses which he charged with pensions
to parsons. The city raised £1000 for repairs and reopened the hospital
for one hundred patients, and on 29th September, 1548, appointed
Chief-Surgeon VICARY as one of the six new governors of the hospital.
The reorganization of the hospital was in a large measure due to this
excellent man and intelligent surgeon. In 1548 he published the first
English work on Anatomy, _The Anatomie of the Body of Man_, which was
reprinted by the Surgeons of Bartholomew’s in 1577. This text-book held
the field for 150 years.[842]

Those who are interested in the origin of our oldest and greatest
hospital in London will find much valuable information in the _Truly
Christian Ordre of the Hospital of S. Bartholomewes_, 1552, published
as Appendix XVI. in Dr. Furnivall’s Vicary, p. 291.

ROBERT COPLAND in 1547 or 48 published his book called _The Hy Way to
the Spitt House_. This is an important and interesting account of the
scamps and rogues who resorted to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London,
in the time of Henry VIII., after the Statute 22nd Hen. VIII. (1530-1),
against vagabonds. At that time the hospital gave temporary lodging to
almost all the needy, as well as a permanent home to the deserving poor
and sick; and sisters attended to them. Copland learns from the porter
all about the ne’er-do-wells and the rascals who sought to impose on
the charity.[843]

The old herbalists were often very patient and devoted investigators,
who experimented upon themselves, and by these means accumulated a
great number of facts of great use in the art of medicine. Conrad
Gesner was one of these; he used to eat small portions of wild herbs,
and test their effects on his own person, sitting down in the study
with the plants around him.[844]

SIR WILLIAM BUTTS, M.D. (died 1545), was physician to Henry VIII., and
was the friend of Wolsey, Cranmer, and Latimer. He was knighted by
Henry, and is immortalised in Shakspeare’s play of _Henry VIII._

GEORGE OWEN, M.D. (died 1558), was physician to Henry VIII., Edward
VI., and Queen Mary. It has been said that Edward VI. was brought into
the world by Dr. Owen, who performed the Cæsarian operation on his
mother.

JOHN CAIUS, M.D. (1510-1573), entered Gonville Hall, Cambridge, 1529.
He at first studied divinity, but in 1539 went to Padua to study
medicine under Montanus. Whilst at Padua, Caius lodged in the same
house with the anatomist Vesalius, devoting no less attention to
anatomy than his companion. He took the degree of doctor of medicine
at Padua. He was public professor of Greek in that University; in
1543 he visited all the great libraries of Italy, collecting MSS.,
with the view of giving correct editions of the works of Galen and
Celsus. In 1552 he was residing in London, and published an account
of the Sweating Sickness which prevailed in 1551. He was physician to
Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth. Dr. Caius enlarged and augmented the
resources of the college at Cambridge, at which he had been educated;
and he rendered eminent service to the College of Physicians by
defending its rights against the illegal practices of the surgeons, who
interfered with the proper functions of the physicians. His munificent
foundation at Cambridge is a claim on the gratitude of the English
nation, and ensures him a high place for ever in the annals of our
universities. The visitor to Cambridge will not fail to remember that
it was he who built the three singular gates at his college, inscribed
to Humility, to Virtue and Wisdom, and to Honour. But he has another
lasting claim to respect on the grounds that he first introduced
the study of practical anatomy into this country, and was the first
publicly to teach it, which he did in the hall of the Barber-Surgeons,
shortly after his return from Italy. Dr. Caius was a profound classical
scholar, and left numerous works on the Greek and Latin medical
authors. As a naturalist, linguist, critic, and antiquary, he was no
less distinguished than as a physician.

EDWARD WOTTON, M.D. (died 1555), seems to have been the first English
physician who applied himself specially to the study of natural
history. He made himself famous by his work on this subject, entitled
_De Differentiis Animalium_.

DR. GEYNES (died 1563) was cited before the College of Physicians for
impugning the authority of Galen; he recanted and humbly acknowledged
his heresy, and was duly pardoned. The circumstance is a curious
illustration of the sentiments of the times.[845]

SIMON LUDFORD was originally a friar who became an apothecary
in London, who was admitted by the University of Oxford to the
baccalaureate in medicine, although totally ignorant and incompetent.
The College reproved the University, and he was compelled to undergo a
course of study, when he was ultimately admitted doctor of medicine in
Oxford, and Fellow of the College of Physicians in 1563.

WILLIAM GILBERT, M.D. (born 1540), engaged in experiments relative to
the magnet, achieving results which Galileo declared to be “great to a
degree which might be envied,” and which induced Galileo to turn his
mind to magnetism.[846]

THOMAS PENNY, M.D. (practised in London, 1570-1). Gerard styles him “a
second Dioscorides, for his singular knowledge of plants.” He was also
one of the first Englishmen who studied insects.

PETER TURNER, M.D. (died 1614), was physician to St. Bartholomew’s
Hospital, and one of the greatest botanists of his age.

THOMAS MUFFET, M.D., the learned friend of distinguished physicians and
naturalists, was esteemed in his day the famous ornament of the body of
physicians (died 1604).

BERENGER OF CAPRI (died 1527) flourished at Bologna (1518). He was a
zealous anatomist, and declared that he had “dissected more than one
hundred human bodies.” He was the first who recognised the larger
proportional size of the male chest than the female, and the converse
concerning the pelvis. He discovered the two arytenoid cartilages in
the larynx, first accurately described the thymus, and gave a good
description of the brain and the internal ear, in which he noticed the
_malleus_ and _incus_. He rectified some of the mistakes of Mondino,
but was, like all other anatomists before Harvey, deeply perplexed
about the heart and the circulation. He investigated the structure of
the valves of the heart.

       *       *       *       *       *

The art of midwifery, up to the middle of the sixteenth century, was
in the lowest possible condition. In 1521, a doctor named Veites was
condemned to the flames in Hamburg, for engaging in the business of
midwifery. In the year 1500, the wife of one JACOB NUFER, of Thurgau,
a Swiss sow-gelder, being in peril of her life in pregnancy, though
thirteen midwives and several surgeons had attempted to deliver her in
the ordinary way, it occurred to her husband to ask permission of the
authorities, and the help of God, to deliver her “as he would a sow.”
He was completely successful, and thus performed the first Cæsarian
operation on the living patient, who lived to bear several other
children in the natural way, and died at the age of seventy-seven.
Another sow-gelder performed the operation of ovariotomy on his own
daughter, in the sixteenth century.

FRANÇOIS ROUSSET (about 1581), physician to the Duke of Savoy, was the
first to write upon the Cæsarian operation. The improvement in printing
and engraving caused the works of the Greek, Roman, and Arabian writers
to be more widely known, and manuals were published for the instruction
of midwives. The first book of this kind was by EUCHARIUS ROSLEIN,
at Worms, called the _Rose Garden for Midwives_ (1513). VESALIUS
(1543) rendered great services to the obstetric art by his anatomical
teaching; and when Rousset published his treatise, the operation became
popular, and was constantly performed on the living subject, sometimes
even when it was not absolutely necessary. PINEAU, a surgeon of Paris,
in 1589, first suggested division of the pubes to facilitate difficult
labour.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the year 1535 (27 Henry VIII.), Wood says[847] that at Oxford
“divers scholars, upon a foresight of the ruin of the clergy, had and
did now betake themselves to physick, who as yet raw and inexpert
would adventure to practise, to the utter undoing of many. The said
visitors ordered, therefore, that none should practise or exercise
that faculty unless he had been examined by the physick professor
concerning his knowledge therein. Which order, being of great moment,
was the year following confirmed by the king, and power by him granted
to the professor and successors to examine those that were to practise
according to the Visitor’s Order.”

PIERRE FRANCO (_c._ 1560) was a Swiss or French surgeon, and a famous
lithotomist, who performed the high operation for the first time in
1560, with success, on a child aged two years. Recognising the dangers
of this method, he introduced a new method in the operation known as
perineal lithotomy, which was called the lateral method. He preceded
Paré in improvements in dealing with strangulated hernia by the
operation known as herniotomy. He was one of the first to re-introduce
into midwifery practice the operation known as “turning,” in difficult
labour. The operation was a familiar one amongst the Hindus, and
had been known to the later Græco-Roman school, but had fallen into
disuse until Paré, Franco, and Guillemeau devoted themselves to the
improvement of this neglected branch of the healing art with great
success.

ANDREW LIBAVIUS (1546-1616), physician at Coburg, is said by Sprengel
to have been the person who began to cultivate chemistry; as distinct
from all theosophical fancies of his predecessors.

CONRAD GESNER, the miracle of learning, whom we have already mentioned,
devoted great attention to gynæcology, and wrote learnedly and without
prejudice upon medicine.

DR. HENRY ALKINS (born 1558) was one of the principal physicians
of James I. While president of the Royal College, the first London
Pharmacopœia was published in 1618.

JOHN BANNISTER was a voluminous writer on surgery who practised in
London, and wrote a treatise on surgery in 1575.

THOMAS GALE (1507-1586), the “English Paré,” was a military surgeon,
under Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, who taught that gun-shot wounds were
not poisoned as was commonly supposed, but were to be treated as
ordinary wounds.

WILLIAM BULLEYN (died 1576) was a famous physician and botanist in the
reigns of the later Tudors. He wrote _The Government of Health_ (1548),
_Book of Simples_, and other works.

FRESCATORIUS (1483-1553) was the first to publish a description of
typhus fever. Dr. Mead says[848] that he knew that “consumption is
contagious, and is contracted by living with a phthisical person, by
the gliding of the corrupted and putrified juices [of the sick] into
the lungs of the sound man.” He _inferred_ the microbes which we _see_.

G. BAILLOU (1536-1614) was the first to describe clearly the diseases
whooping cough and croup.

ALEXANDER BENEDETTI (died 1525) was an anatomist, who made important
observations on gall-stones.

FELIX PLATTER (1536-1614), a professor at Basle, must ever be
gratefully remembered for his humane and wise opposition to the cruel
treatment of the insane by coercive measures, which unhappily were
in fashion up to recent times. He suggested the division of diseases
into three classes: (1) Mental disorders; (2) Pains, fevers, etc.; (3)
Deformities and defects of secretion.

A book which contains directions for identifying simples and preparing
compound medicines is called a Pharmacopœia. The first work of this
character, which was published under Government authority, was that
of Nuremberg, in 1512. A student, VALERIUS CORDUS, passing through
the city, exhibited a recipe book, which he had compiled from the
writings of the most eminent physicians of the town. He was urged to
print it for the benefit of the apothecaries. The College of Medicine
at Florence issued the _Antidotarium Florentinum_, somewhat earlier,
but merely on its own authority. Dr. A. Foes used the term pharmacopœia
first as a distinct title for his work published at Basle, in 1561.[849]

COSTANZO VAROLIUS of Bologna (1545-1575), one of the greatest of the
Italian anatomists, described the optic nerves and many important
points in the anatomy of the brain.

VOLCHER COITER, of Groningen (1534-1600), was a pupil of Fallopius and
Eustachius, who was distinguished for his important researches on the
cartilages, bones, nerves, and the anatomy of the fœtal skeleton.

FABRICIUS, of Acquapendente (1537-1619), a pupil of Fallopius, and a
distinguished anatomist, made important researches on the structure of
animals in general. His famous discovery of the valves of the veins
and his investigations concerning their use led Harvey to make the
discovery of the circulation of the blood.

CASSERIUS (1561-1616) investigated the anatomy of the vocal organs,
discovered the muscles of the ossicles of the ear, and practised
bronchotomy, which he had learned from Fabricius. He was professor at
Padua, and a teacher of Harvey.

SPIGEL (1578-1625) made researches on the liver, a lobulus of which
bears his name.

OLAUS WORM (1588-1654) first described the small bones of the skull,
now called “Wormian” bones.

It was not till the sixteenth century that France contributed her
quota to the list of great anatomists. Nothing shows more clearly the
difficulty with which learning was spread in the times of which we
write than the fact that the works of the early Italian anatomists were
altogether unknown in France until a hundred years after they were
written.

JACQUES DUBOIS (1478-1555) taught anatomy at Paris, and was professor
of surgery to the Royal College. He was an irrational admirer of Galen.
The carcases of dogs and other animals were the materials from which
he taught; it does not appear that it was possible to obtain human
subjects for dissection without robbing the cemeteries.

CHARLES ETIENNE (1503-64) was the first to detect valves in the
orifices of the hepatic veins. He knew nothing of the researches of
Achillini concerning the brain, although they were made sixty years
before; yet his investigations of the structure of the nervous system
were most important, and his demonstration of the existence of a canal
running through the whole length of the spinal cord, which had not
previously been suspected, entitles him to a high place in the history
of anatomy.

A new era in the history of anatomy was inaugurated by the appearance
of ANDREW VESALIUS (1514-1564), a Fleming, who pursued the study with
the greatest assiduity at Venice, and demonstrated it at Padua before
he was twenty-two. He remained there seven years, then went to Bologna
and thence to Pisa. He is known as the first author of a systematic and
comprehensive view of human anatomy. He recognised the necessity of
divesting the science of the current misrepresentations of ignorance
and fancy.

Vesalius especially contributed to our knowledge of the circulatory
organs; it was he who, by his study of the structure of the heart and
the mechanism of its valves, stimulated his pupils and fellow-students
to pursue a course of research which ended at last in Harvey’s immortal
discovery. Besides these researches on the vascular system, he first
accurately described the sphenoid bone and the sternum. He described
the omentum, the pylorus, the mediastinum and pleura, and gave the
fullest description of the brain which, up to that time, had appeared.
Splendid as were his researches, and valuable as were his writings, it
was perhaps by the way in which he stimulated inquiry in others that he
rendered the greatest services to anatomical science.

Dr. Molony, writing in the _British Medical Journal_, December 31,
1892, says: “I recently secured possession of his works, entitled
_Andreæ Vesalii Invictissimi Caroli V. Imperatoris Medici Opera Omnia_.
It is a curious work in two immense folio volumes, written in fairly
good Latin. It has several plates representing the surgical instruments
of the period, dissections, and, it must be added, quadrupeds of all
sorts tied up evidently awaiting vivisection.

“The preface consists of a lengthy and appreciative life of Vesalius,
from which it seems that he was born in 1514, at Brussels, where his
father was court physician. As a boy he seems to have shown a taste for
comparative anatomy, ‘puer animalium penetralia nudare atque viscera
inspicere soleret.’ His anatomical studies were at all times pursued
under difficulties. He obtained the bodies of criminals by bribing
the judges, ‘corpora nactus eorum, in cubicula vexit, suosque in usus
per tres et ultra septimanas asservavit. Horretne legenti animus? O
juvenilis ardor, repagula eluctatur ferrea! Tali opus erat ingenio,
artibus bis, at nobile conderet opus.’ He does not seem to have been
married, if we may judge from the following extract: ‘Aetate vero
integra, uxore, liberis, rei familiaris omni cura liber, totum se
immersit in anatomicis.’

“Vesalius was an enthusiastic surgeon, and apparently looked down
upon the physicians of the period: ‘Jocatus medicos reliquos syrupis
præscribendis unice occupari.’ His success aroused the jealousy of his
contemporaries. Among others he came into collision with Sylvius of
Paris, Eustachius of Rome, and Fallopius of Padua. Mention is also made
of ‘Joannis Caji Medici Celebris Britanni.’ It would be interesting to
ascertain who this was. [No doubt it was Caius.]

“The end of Vesalius was tragic enough. ‘Hispanum curabat nobilem
petiit ab amicis defuncti corpus aperire ut mortis scrutaretur causam.
Quo concesso, visum cor in aperto jam pectore adhuc palpitans.’ The
punishment ordered for this was a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. On his
return voyage he was wrecked on the island of Zacinthus. ‘Inops, in
loco solitario, omnique carens subsidio miserabiliter vitam finivit
1564.’”

“VESALIUS,” says Portal, “appears to me one of the greatest men who
ever existed. Let the astronomers vaunt their Copernicus, the natural
philosophers their Galileo and Torricelli, the mathematicians their
Pascal, the geographers their Columbus, I shall always place Vesalius
above all their heroes. The first study for man is man. Vesalius has
this noble object in view, and has admirably attained it; he has made
on himself and his fellows such discoveries as Columbus could only
make by travelling to the extremity of the world. The discoveries of
Vesalius are of direct importance to man; by acquiring fresh knowledge
of his own structure, man seems to enlarge his existence; while
discoveries in geography or astronomy affect him but in a very indirect
manner.”

The zeal of Vesalius and his fellow-students of anatomy often led
them to weird adventures. Hallam says:[850] “they prowled by night in
charnel-houses, they dug up the dead from the graves, they climbed the
gibbet, in fear and silence, to steal the mouldering carcase of the
murderer; the risk of ignominious punishment, and the secret stings of
superstitious remorse, exalting no doubt the delight of these useful
but not very enviable pursuits.” Vesalius, as has been said above,
was once absurdly accused of dissecting a Spanish gentleman before he
was dead. He only escaped the punishment of death by undertaking a
pilgrimage to Jerusalem, during which he was shipwrecked, and died of
famine in one of the Greek islands.[851]

GABRIEL FALLOPIUS (1523-1562) was a prominent pupil of Vesalius who
studied the anastomoses (the blending together) of the blood-vessels.
His researches in the anatomy of the bones and the internal ear greatly
advanced anatomical knowledge. He discovered the tubes connected
with the womb, called after him the “Fallopian tubes.” Fallopius is
described as a savant distinguished by his sense of justice, his
modesty and gentleness; yet Dr. Baas says,[852] “the fact that even
Fallopio did not shrink from accepting the gift of some convicts, and
then poisoning them—indeed, when the first experiment proved a failure,
he tried it again with better success—is characteristic of the zeal of
the age in the investigation of the human body, and of the barbarous
idea that might makes right towards those guilty before the law!”

EUSTACHIUS was a contemporary of Vesalius. He divides with him the
honour of having created the science of human anatomy. His name is
perpetuated by the tube in the internal ear, called the “Eustachian
tube.” His researches on the anatomy of the internal part of the organ
of hearing, his studies in the anatomy of the teeth, in which he was
the pioneer, his famous _Anatomical Engravings_, and his labours in
connection with the intimate structure of the organs of the body, taken
in connection with their relative anatomy, prove that he laboured for
the advancement of the knowledge of the structure of the human frame
with the utmost assiduity and success.

J. C. ARANZI (1530-1589), of Bologna, gave the first correct account of
the anatomy of the fœtus, and his description of that of the brain is
exceedingly minute and lucid. He named the _hippocampus_, described the
choroid plexus, and the fourth ventricle under the name of the _cistern
of the cerebellum_.

COLUMBUS (died 1559) was a pupil of Vesalius, whom he succeeded in the
chair of anatomy at Padua. He had a glimpse of how the blood passes
from the right to the left side of the heart, but he had no true
knowledge of the circulation.

_Michael Servetus_ (1511-1553) was either a pupil or fellow-student of
Vesalius, who, in 1553, described accurately the pulmonary circulation.
He recognised that the change from venous into arterial blood took
place in the lungs, and not in the left ventricle. He was a pioneer in
physiological science by his great discovery of the respiratory changes
in the lungs.

LEVASSEUR (about 1540), says Hallam,[853] appears to have known the
circulation of the blood through the lungs, the valves of the veins,
and their direction and purpose.

GASPARE TAGLIACOZZI (1546-1599) was a professor at Bologna, whose
name is famous in the history of surgery from his skill in performing
“plastic operations.” Rhinoplastic operation is a term in surgery
sometimes synonymous with the Taliacotian operation, which is a process
for forming an artificial nose. It consists in bringing down a piece
of flesh from the forehead, and while preserving its attachment to
the living structures, causing it to adhere to the anterior part of
the remains of the nose. Tagliacozzi, himself, to replace the lost
substance employed the skin of the upper part of the arm, as BRANCA
did previously. Patients flocked to him from all parts of Europe. The
world was, as usual, ungrateful; the great surgeon was considered to
have presumptuously interfered with the authority of Providence. Noses
and lips which the Divinity had destroyed as a punishment for the sins
of men had been restored by this daring man. After his death some nuns
heard voices in their convent crying for several weeks: “Tagliacozzi is
damned!” By the direction of the clergy of Bologna his corpse was taken
from the grave and re-interred in unconsecrated ground.[854] We are not
in a position to sneer at this, for the preachers of the nineteenth
century said something very similar of the use of chloroform in
midwifery only a few years ago. In 1742 the Faculty of Paris declared
Tagliacozzi’s operation impossible; but the English journals, in 1794,
discovered that such a method of surgical procedure had been in use
in India from ancient times, and then the scientific world tried the
experiment and succeeded perfectly.

AMBROISE PARÉ, “the father of French surgery” (1509-1590), availed
himself of the opportunities offered him in military surgery during the
campaign of Francis I. in Piedmont. It was the practice of the time to
treat gunshot wounds with hot oil—a treatment which Paré revolutionized
by using merely a simple bandage.

In 1545 he attended the lectures of Sylvius at Paris, and became
prosector to that great anatomist. His book on _Anatomy_ was published
five years later. By his employment of the ligature for large arteries,
he was able so completely to control hæmorrhage that he was able to
practise amputation on a larger scale than had before been attempted.
Paré is considered as the first who regularly employed the ligature
after amputation. He declares in his _Apologie_ that the invention
was due to the ancients, and he explains their use of it, although he
ascribes to inspiration of the Deity his own first adoption of the
practice.

The PHILOSOPHER RAMUS in 1562 urged Charles IX. of France to establish
schools for clinical teaching, such as already existed at Padua.

ROBERT FLUDD, M.D., or in the Latin style he affected, _Robertus
de Fluctibus_, was born in 1574; he was an ardent supporter of the
Rosicrucian philosophy. He had a strong leaning towards chemistry, but
had little faith in orthodox medicine. His medical ideas consisted of
a mysterious mixture of divinity, chemistry, natural philosophy, and
metaphysics.

In 1573, Harrison, in his unpublished _Chronologie_, remarks that
“these daies the taking in of the smoke of the Indian herb called
tabaco, by an instrument like a little ladell, is gretly taken up and
used in England against rewmes.”

It was not till 1576 that croup was well understood. Laënnec thinks it
was quite unknown to the Greek and Arabian physicians; but Forbes says
that it was known to Hippocrates and Aretæus, although its pathology
was not understood. Ballonius was the first who accurately described
the false membrane, which is a characteristic of the disease.[855]

At the Reformation in England under Elizabeth, some of the Catholic
priests who refused to conform to the new religion sought in other
professions the means of living. In a curious old book, _Tom of all
Trades, or the Plaine Pathway to Preferment_, by Thomas Powell (printed
1631), there is a story which no doubt was founded in fact. “And heere
I remember me of an old tale following, _viz._, At the beginning of the
happy raigne of our late good Queene _Elizabeth_, divers Commissioners
of great place, being authorized to enquire of, and to displace, all
such of the _Clergie_ as would not conforme to the reformed _Church_,
one amongst others was Conuented before them, who being asked whether
he would subscribe or no, denied it, and so consequently was adiudged
to lose his benefice and to be deprived his function; wherevpon, in
his impatience, he said, ‘That if they (meaning the Commissioners)
held this course it would cost many a man’s life.’ For which the
Commissioners called him backe againe, and charged him that he had
spoke treasonable and seditious words, tending to the raysing of a
rebellion or some tumult in the Land; for which he should receive the
reward of a Traytor. And being asked whether hee spake those words or
no, he acknowledged it, and tooke vpon him the Iustification thereof;
‘for, said he, ‘yee have taken from me my liuing and profession of the
Ministrie; Schollership is all my portion, and I have no other meanes
now left for my maintenance but to turn _Phisition_; and before I
shalbe absolute Master of that Misterie (God he knowes) how many mens
lives it will cost. For few _Phisitions_ vse to try experiments vpon
their owne bodies.’

“With vs, it is a Profession can maintaine but a few. And diuers of
those more indebted to opinion than learning, and (for the most part)
better qualified in discoursing their travailes than in discerning
their patients malladies. For it is growne to be a very huswiues trade,
where fortune prevailes more than skill.”

A writer in Hood’s _Every-Day Book_, on the date February 25, says
that the monks knew of more than three hundred species of medicinal
plants which were used in general for medicines by the religious
orders before the Reformation. The Protestants, the more efficiently to
root out Popery, changed the Catholic names of many of these. Thus the
_virgin’s bower_ of the monastic physician was changed into _flammula
Jovis_; the _hedge hyssop_ into _gratiola_; _St. John’s wort_ became
_hypericum_; _fleur de St. Louis_ was called _iris_; _palma Christi_
became _ricinus_; _Our Master wort_ was christened _imperatona_;
_sweet bay_ they called _laurus_; _Our Lady’s smock_ was changed into
_cardamine_; _Solomon’s seal_ into _convallaria_; _Our Lady’s hair_
into _trichomanes_; _balm_ into _melissa_; _marjoram_ into _origanum_;
_herb Trinity_ into _viola tricolor_; _knee holy_ into _rascus_;
_rosemary_ into _rosmarinus_; _marygold_ into _calendula_; and a
hundred others. But the old Catholic names cling to the plants of the
cottage garden, and _Star of Bethlehem_ has not quite given place to
_ornithogalum_; _Star of Jerusalem_ to _goat’s beard_; nor _Lent lily_
to _daffodil_.

The gullibility of mankind has never been exhibited in a clearer
light than JOHANN VALENTIN ANDREÆ (1586-1654) succeeded in showing
in his elaborate joke of the SOCIETY OF THE ROSY-CROSS. In 1614 a
famous but entirely fabulous secret society set the scholars of Europe
discussing the pretensions of the Rosicrucians, who were said to have
derived their origin from one CHRISTIAN ROSENKREUZ, two hundred years
previously. This philosopher, it was said, had made a pilgrimage to
the East, to learn its hidden wisdom, of which the art of making
gold was a portion. The character of the society was Christian, but
anti-Catholic, and its ostensible objects were the study of philosophy
and the gratuitous healing of the sick. Its device was a cross, with
four red roses. Andreæ was a learned man, but jocular withal; for no
sooner had the public eagerly swallowed his story, than he confessed
the whole was pure invention, and that he had originated the idea with
the view of ridiculing the alchemists and Theosophists, whose opinions
were dominating European society. The public, however, liked the idea
so well that it developed and flourished, and a society was established
called _Fraternitas Rosæ Crucis_. The most celebrated followers of
the Rosicrucians were Valentine Wiegel, Jacob Boehm, Egidius Gutman,
Michael Mayer, Oswald Crollius, and Robert Fludd.[856]

De Quincey has traced the connection between the Rosicrucians and
Freemasons. “Rosicrucianism,” he says, “it is true, is not Freemasonry,
but the latter borrowed its form from the first.”[857]

Scrofula was anciently treated in a superstitious manner by the
sovereigns of England and France by imposition of hands. This ceremony
is said to have been first performed by Edward the Confessor
(1042-1066). A special “Service of Healing” was used in the English
Church in the reign of Henry VIII. (1484-1509).

The ceremonies of blessing cramp-rings on Good Friday, called the
Hallowing of the Cramp-Rings, is described by Bishop Percy in his
_Northumberland Household Book_,[858] where we have the following
account:—

“And then the Usher to lay a Carpett for the Kinge to Creepe to the
Crosse upon. And that done, there shal be a Forme sett upon the
Carpett, before the Crucifix, and a Cushion laid upon it for the King
to kneale upon. And the Master of the Jewell Howse ther to be ready
with the Booke concerninge the Hallowing of the Crampe Rings, and
Amner (Almoner) muste kneele on the right hand of the Kinge, holdinge
the sayde booke. When that is done the King shall rise and goe to the
Alter, wheare a Gent. Usher shall be redie with a Cushion for the Kinge
to kneele upon; and then the greatest Lords that shall be ther to take
the Bason with the Rings and beare them after the Kinge to offer.”

In the Harleian Manuscripts there is a letter from Lord Chancellor
Hatton to Sir Thomas Smith, dated Sept, 11th, 158-, about a prevailing
epidemic, and enclosing a ring for Queen Elizabeth to wear between
her breasts, the said ring having “the virtue to expell infectious
airs.”[859]

Andrew Boorde, in his _Introduction to Knowledge_ (1547-48), says: “The
Kynges of England by the power that God hath gyuen to them, dothe make
sicke men whole of a sickeness called the kynges euyll. The Kynges of
England doth halowe euery yere crampe rynges, the whyche rynges, worne
on ones fynger, dothe helpe them the whyche hath the crampe.”[860]

Concerning the king’s evil, which Boorde explains is an “euyl sickenes
or impediment,” he advises: “For this matter let euery man make frendes
to the Kynges maiestie, for it doth pertayne to a Kynge to helpe this
infirmitie by the grace the whiche is geuen to a Kynge anoynted.”[861]

In Robert Laneham’s letter[862] about Queen Elizabeth’s visit to
Kenilworth Castle, it is told how on July 18th, 1575, her Majesty
touched for the evil, and that it was “a day of grace.” “By her
highnes accustumed mercy and charitee, nyne cured of the peynfull and
daungerous diseaz, called the kings euill; for that Kings and Queenz of
this Realm withoout oother medsin (saue only by handling and prayerz)
only doo cure it.”

Sir John Fortescue, in his defence of the House of Lancaster against
that of York, argued that the crown could not descend to a female
because the Queen is not qualified by the form of anointing her to
cure the disease called the king’s evil. On this account, and more
especially after the excommunication of Elizabeth by the Pope in 1570,
it must have been eminently comforting to all concerned to find that
the power to cure disease by the royal touch had not been affected by
the change of religion or any other cause. The practice was at its
height in the reign of Charles II.[863]

Lord Braybrooke says,[864] “In the first four years after his
restoration he ‘touched’ nearly 24,000 people.” We find that Dr.
Johnson was touched by Queen Anne. “The Office for the Healing”
continued to be printed in the Book of Common Prayer after the
accession of the House of Hanover.

The custom evidently arose from the fact that Edward the Confessor
was a saint as well as a king. William of Malmesbury gives the origin
of the royal touch in his account of the miracles of Edward: “A young
woman had married a husband of her own age, but having no issue by
the union, the humours collecting abundantly about her neck, she had
contracted a sore disorder, the glands swelling in a dreadful manner.
Admonished in a dream to have the part affected washed by the king,
she entered the palace, and the king himself fulfilled this labour of
love, by rubbing the woman’s neck with his fingers dipped in water.
Joyous health followed his healing hand; the lurid skin opened, so that
worms flowed out with the purulent matter, and the tumour subsided.
But as the orifice of the ulcers was large and unsightly, he commanded
her to be supported at the royal expense till she should be perfectly
cured. However, before a week was expired, a fair new skin returned,
and hid the scars so completely, that nothing of the original wound
could be discovered; and within a year becoming the mother of twins,
she increased the admiration of Edward’s holiness. Those who knew him
more intimately, affirm that he often cured this complaint in Normandy;
whence appears how false is their notion, who in our times assert, that
the cure of this disease does not proceed from personal sanctity, but
from hereditary virtue in the royal line.”[865]

Many other miracles of healing were attributed to St. Edward. Jeremy
Collier[866] maintains that the scrofula miracle is hereditary upon
all his successors. The curious fact, however, is that the hereditary
right of succession was repeatedly interrupted, yet the power remained.
In connection with this royal touching, pieces of gold were given by
the sovereigns to be worn by the patients as amulets. They were called
“touching pieces,” and though not absolutely requisite for the cure,
some persons declared that the disease returned if they lost the coins.
We can only account for the great efficacy which in some cases seemed
to have attended the royal treatment, by the confidence and exalted
expectation awakened in the sufferers by the ceremony, which acted as a
tonic to the system, and roused the patients’ imagination to contribute
to their own cure.[867]

Chips and handkerchiefs dipped in the blood of King Charles I. are said
to have been efficacious in curing sick persons in hundreds of cases.

The College of Physicians of Edinburgh was created by the king’s
letters patent in 1581, one year after the foundation of Edinburgh
University by James VI.

In the reign of Elizabeth, when physicians rode on horseback, they were
seated sideways; many of them carried muffs, to keep their fingers warm
when they had to feel their patient’s pulse. Twice a year everybody was
bled—a system which must have caused many disorders.

Fifteen centuries after the age of CELSUS, with the revival of learning
and science came the revival of human vivisection. VESALIUS, as
above mentioned, is known to have vivisected men; and in the _Storia
Universale_ of CESARE CANTÙ there is an account of the DUKE OF FLORENCE
giving a man for vivisection to FALLOPIUS. This incident has been
disputed; but the following series of cases, extracted by Professor
ANDREOZZI from the Criminal Archives of Florence, and published by him
in his book _Leggi Penali degli antichi e Cinesi_, are beyond question.
COSMO DE MEDICI seems to have taken the anatomists of Pisa under his
special favour, and to have sent them the miserable convicts from the
prisons at his option. The following examples are a selection from the
cases extracted by Signor ANDREOZZI from the _Archivio Criminale_:—

“1. January 15th, 1545.—SANTA DI MARIOTTO TARCHI DI MUGELLO, wife of
BASTIANO LUCCHESE, was condemned to be beheaded for infanticide. Under
the sentence is written, ‘Dicta Santa, de mente Excell^{mi} Ducis, fuit
missa Pisis, de ea per doctores fieret notomia.’[No notice to be found
of any execution of the woman, such as would have appeared had she been
put to death before she was sent to Pisa.]

“2. December 14th, 1547.—GIULIO MANCINI SANESE was condemned for
robbery and other offences. Sent to Pisa to be anatomised. ‘Ducatur
Pisis, pro faciendo de eo notomia.’

“3. In the record of prisoners sent away, dated September 1st, 1551,
occurs this entry:—‘Letter to the Commissioner of Castrocaro, that
MADDALENA, who is imprisoned for killing her son, should be sent here,
if she be likely to recover, as it pleases S. E. that she should be
reserved for anatomy. Of this nothing is to be said, but she is to be
kept in hopes. If she is not likely to recover, the executioner is
to be sent for to decapitate her.’ The end of the horrible extract
is,—‘Went to Pisa, to be made an anatomy.’

“4. December 12th, 1552.—A man named ZUCCHERIA, accused of piracy, was
reserved from hanging, with his comrade, and sent to Pisa, ‘per la
notomia.’

“5. December 22nd, 1552.—A certain ULIVO DI PAOLO was condemned by
the Council of Eight to be hanged for poisoning his wife. Sentence
changed—to be sent for anatomy. Was sent to Pisa on January 13th.

“6. November 14th, 1553.—MARGUERITA, wife of BIAJIO D’ANTINORO,
condemned to be beheaded for infanticide.... December 20th, ‘she was
released from the fetters and consigned to a familiar, who took her to
Pisa to the Commissario, _who gave her, as usual, to the anatomist, to
make anatomy of her_; which was done’ (‘che la consegni, secondo il
solito, al notomista, per farne notomia, come fu fatto’).”

“Several other cases, from 1554 to 1570, are recorded, with equally
unmistakable exactitude. In one instance the condemned man’s destiny
was mitigated, and after having been ordered to be sent to Pisa for
the Commissario to consign to the anatomist, ‘when he should ask for
him, and at his pleasure,’ he was mercifully sentenced to be hanged
at once at Vico, ‘by direction of Sua Excellenza Illustrissima.’ Two
unfortunate thieves, PAOLI DI GIOVANNI and VESTRINO D’AGNOLO, were sent
together by the Council of Eight to be anatomised; the Duke having
written to say ‘that they wanted in Pisa a subject for anatomy.’”

After the date 1570 no more cases occur in the Archives.

Francis I. invited the Italian anatomist VIDUS VIDIUS to his royal
college at Paris.

Several new medicines were introduced about this period.

Lemon juice was first spoken of as a remedy for scurvy in 1564. Its use
was discovered by some Dutch sailors whose ship was laden with lemons
and oranges from Spain.[868]

The virtues of sassafras as a medicine for scurvy were discovered,
according to Cartier, in 1536, on a voyage to explore the coast of
Newfoundland and the St. Lawrence. The natives advised the sailors
afflicted with the malady to use the wood of the tree ameda, which was
thought to have been sassafras.[869]

[Illustration: INTERIOR OF A DOCTOR’S HOUSE.

Facsimile of a miniature from the _Epistre de Othea_, by Christine de
Pisan. (Fifteenth century MS. in Burgundy Library, Brussels.)
                                                         [_Face p._ 374]

Sarsaparilla was first brought to Europe by the Spaniards, in the
middle of the sixteenth century, from Peru and Brazil.

Guaiacum was introduced into Europe in 1509, and in 1519 its use became
common.

Holinshed complained[870] that estimation and credit given to compound
medicines made with foreign drugs in his time was one great cause of
the prevailing ignorance of the virtues and uses of “our own simples,”
which he held to be fully as useful as the “salsa parilla, mochoacan,
etc.,” so much in request. “We tread those herbs under our feet, whose
forces, if we knew and could apply them to our necessities, we would
honour and have in reverence.—Alas! what have we to do with such
Arabian and Grecian stuff as is daily brought from those parts which
lie in another clime?—The bodies of such as dwell there are of another
constitution than ours are here at home. Certes, they grow not for us,
but for the Arabians and Grecians.—Among the Indians, who have the most
present cures for every disease of their own nation, there is small
regard of compound medicines, and less of foreign drugs, because they
neither know them nor can use them, but work wonders even with their
own simples.”

CARLO RUINI, of Bologna, published in 1598 a work on the anatomy of the
horse, in which Ercolani has found evidence that he, to some extent,
anticipated Harvey’s discovery.[871]

NICHOLAS HOUEL (1520-1585) was born at Paris, 1520. He was a famous
and learned pharmacien, who devoted the fortune which he acquired by
his industry and skill to philanthropic and scientific purposes. He
founded a great orphanage in Paris, and the School of Pharmacy of that
city owes its origin to him. He wrote a _Treatise on the Plague_, and
one on the _Theriacum of Mithridates_, both published in 1573. It is to
his enlightened and charitable suggestion that dispensaries arose in
Paris. His “Garden of Simples” inspired the creation of the _Jardin des
Plantes_.[872]

Even at the close of the sixteenth century careful and sober men, as
Mr. Henry Morley says,[873] believed in the miraculous properties of
plants and animals and parts of animals. When the century commenced,
the learned and unlearned alike believed in the influences of the stars
and the interferences of demons with diseases, and in the mysteries
of magic. The reason why students of such sciences as existed were
punished and persecuted was the dread which men had that the knowledge
of the occult powers of nature would afford the learner undue and
mysterious power over them.


LEGAL MEDICINE.

That most important branch of medical science known as Medical
Jurisprudence, or Forensic Medicine, first took its rise in Germany,
and, later, was recognised as a necessary branch of study in England.
Briefly this science may be described as “that branch of State medicine
which treats of the application of medical knowledge to the purposes
of the law.” It embraces all questions affecting the civil or social
rights of individuals, and of injuries to the person. Although we
find traces of the first principles of this science in ancient times,
especially in connection with legitimacy, feigned diseases, etc., it
is by no means certain that even in Rome the law required any medical
inspection of dead bodies. The science dates only from the sixteenth
century. The Bishop of Bamberg, in 1507, introduced a penal code
requiring the production of medical evidence in certain cases. In
1532, Charles V. induced the Diet of Ratison to adopt a code in which
magistrates were ordered to call medical evidence in cases of personal
injuries, infanticide, pretended pregnancy, simulated diseases, and
poisoning. The actual birth of forensic medicine, however, did not take
place until the publication, in Germany, in 1553, of the _Constitutio
Criminalis Carolina_.[874] The difficulties which the infant science
had to contend against may be estimated from the fact that a few years
later a physician named Weiker, who declared that witches and demoniacs
were simply persons afflicted with hypochondriasis and hysteria, and
should not be punished, was with difficulty saved from the stake by his
patron, William, Duke of Cleves.

AMBROSE PARÉ wrote on monsters, simulated diseases, and the art of
drawing up medico-legal reports.

In 1621-35 Paulo Zacchia, of Rome, published a work entitled
_Quæstiones Medico-Legales_, which inaugurated a new era in the
history of Forensic Medicine. He exhibited immense research in this
classical work, the materials for which he collected from 460 authors.
Considering that chemistry and physiology were then so imperfectly
understood, such a work is a proof of the learning and sagacity of the
author.

In 1663 the Danish physician Bartholin proposed the hydrostatic
test for the determination of live-birth, the method used to-day in
examining the lungs of an infant to discover whether the child was born
alive or not, by observing whether they float or sink in water.




CHAPTER II.

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

 Bacon and the Inductive Method.—Descartes and
 Physiology.—Newton.—Boyle and the Royal Society.—The Founders of the
 Schools of Medical Science.—Sydenham, the English Hippocrates.—Harvey
 and the Rise of Physiology.—The Microscope in Medicine.—Willis and the
 Reform of Materia Medica.


The seventeenth century is important in the history of medicine as
the era of the two greatest discoveries of modern physiology—the
circulation of the blood, and the development of the higher animals
from the egg (ovum). Both of these are due to Harvey, and both were
made in the midst of the troubles of the great Civil War. The history
of medicine is so interwoven at this important period with that of
science and philosophy in general, that it is necessary to glance
awhile at the great factors which were working out the advancement of
medical learning.

Amongst the greatest figures on the scientific stage at the beginning
and middle of the seventeenth century are the following:—

FRANCIS BACON (1561-1626) was the great leader in the reformation of
modern science, and shares with Descartes the glory of inaugurating
modern philosophy. His great work, the _Novum Organon_, was given to
the world just as authority and dogmatism had been discarded from
scientific thought, and the era of experiment had begun. It was not
Bacon’s contributions to science, not his discoveries, which entitle
him to the highest place in the reformation of science, but the
general spirit of his philosophy and his connected mode of thinking,
his insistence upon the need for rejecting rash generalization, and
analysing our experience, employing hypothesis, not by guess work,
but by the scientific imagination which calls to its assistance
experimental comparison, verification, and proof. Bacon’s philosophy of
induction was reared upon a foundation of exclusion and elimination. He
relegated theological questions to the region of faith, insisting that
experience and observation are the only remedies against prejudice and
error.[875]

The publication of Bacon’s _Novum Organon_ in 1620 resulted in the
formation of a society of learned men, who met together in London in
1645 to discuss philosophical subjects and the results of their various
experiments in science. They are described as “inquisitive,” a term
which aptly illustrates the temper of the times. Taking nothing upon
trust, these men inquired for themselves, and left their books to make
experiment, as Bacon had urged students of nature to do. About 1648-9
DRS. WILKINS, WALLIS, and others removed to Oxford, and with SETH WARD,
the HON. ROBERT BOYLE, PETTY, and other men of divinity and physic,
often met in the rooms of DR. WILKINS at Wadham College, and so formed
the Philosophical Society of Oxford, which existed only till 1690.
About 1658 the members were dispersed, the majority coming to London
and attending lectures at Gresham College. Thus, in the midst of civil
war, thoughtful and inquiring minds found a refuge from the quarrels
of politicians and the babel of contending parties in the pursuit
of knowledge and the advancement of research. The Royal Society was
organized in 1660, and on 22nd April, 1662, Charles II. constituted it
a body politic and corporate. The _Philosophical Transactions_ began
6th March, 1664-5. 1668 Newton invented his reflecting telescope,
and on 28th April, 1686, presented to the Society the MS. of his
_Principia_, which the council ordered to be printed.

RENE DESCARTES (1596-1650), the philosopher, applied himself to the
study of physics in all its branches, but especially to physiology. He
said that science may be compared to a tree; metaphysics is the root,
physics is the trunk, and the three chief branches are mechanics,
medicine, and morals,—the three applications of our knowledge to the
outward world, to the human body, and to the conduct of life.[876] He
studied chemistry and anatomy, dissecting the heads of animals in order
to explain imagination and memory, which he believed to be physical
processes.[877] In 1629 he asks Mersenne to take care of himself, “till
I find out if there is any means of getting a medical theory based
on infallible demonstration, which is what I am now inquiring.”[878]
Descartes embraced the doctrine of the circulation of the blood as
discovered by Harvey, and he did much to popularise it, falling in
as it did with his mechanical theory of life. He thought the nerves
were tubular vessels which conduct the animal spirits to the muscles,
and in their turn convey the impressions of the organs to the brain.
He considered man and the animals were machines. “The animals act
naturally and by springs, like a watch.”[879] “The greatest of all
the prejudices we have retained from our infancy is that of believing
that the beasts think.”[880] Naturally such a monstrous theory did much
to encourage vivisection, a practice common with Descartes.[881] “The
recluses of Port Royal,” says Dr. Wallace,[882] “seized it eagerly,
discussed automatism, dissected living animals in order to show to
a morbid curiosity the circulation of the blood, were careless of
the cries of tortured dogs, and finally embalmed the doctrine in a
syllogism of their logic: no matter thinks; every soul of beast is
matter, therefore no soul of beast thinks. He held that the seat of the
mind of man was in that structure of the brain called by anatomists the
pineal gland.”

MALEBRANCHE (1638-1715) was a disciple of Descartes, who thought his
system served to explain the mystery of life and thought. In his
famous _Recherche de la Verite_ he anticipated later discoveries in
physiology, _e.g._, Hartley’s principle of the interdependence of
vibrations in the nervous system and our conscious states.

BLAISE PASCAL (1623-1662), as a natural philosopher, rendered great
services to science. The account of his experiments, written in 1662,
on the equilibrium of fluids, entitles him to be considered one of the
founders of hydrodynamics. His experiments on the pressure of the air
and his invention for measuring it greatly assisted to advance the work
begun by Galileo and Torricelli. Not only in the great work done, but
in those which were undertaken in consequence of his inspiration, we
recognise in Pascal one of the most brilliant scientists of a brilliant
age.

HOBBES (1588-1679), the famous author of the _Leviathan_, endeavoured
to base all that he could upon mathematical principles. Philosophy, he
said, is concerned with the perfect knowledge of truth in all matters
whatsoever. If the moral philosophers had done for mankind what the
geometricians had effected, men would have enjoyed an immortal peace.

BENEDICT DE SPINOZA (1632-1677), the philosopher, had some medical
training. His spirit has had a large share in moulding the philosophic
thought of the nineteenth century. Novalis saw in him not an atheist,
but a “God-intoxicated man.” His philosophy indeed was a pure
pantheism; the foundation of his system is the doctrine of one infinite
substance. All finite things are modes of this substance.

SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727), the greatest of natural philosophers,
in the years 1685 and 1686—years for ever to be remembered in the
history of science—composed almost the whole of his famous work, the
_Principia_.

ROBERT BOYLE (1626-1691), one of the great nature philosophers of the
seventeenth century, and one of the founders of the Royal Society,
published his first book at Oxford, in 1660, entitled _New Experiments,
Physico-Mechanical, touching the Spring of Air, and its Effects_.
He was at one time deeply interested in alchemy. He was the first
great investigator who carried out the suggestions of Bacon’s _Novum
Organon_. He was a patient researcher and observer of facts.

PIERRE BAYLE (1647-1706), the author of the celebrated _Historical
and Critical Dictionary_, was a sceptic, of a peculiar turn of mind.
He knew so much concerning every side of every subject which he
had considered, that he came to the conclusion that certainty was
unattainable.

VAN HELMONT (1578-1644) was one of the most celebrated followers of
Paracelsus. He learned astronomy, astrology, and philosophy at Rouvain,
then studied magic under the Jesuits, and afterwards learned law,
botany, and medicine; but he became disgusted with the pretensions of
the latter science when it failed to cure him of the itch. He became
a mystic, and attached himself to the principles of Tauler and Thomas
à Kempis. Then he practised medicine as an act of charity, till,
falling in with the works of Paracelsus, he devoted ten years to their
study. He married, and devoted himself to medicine and chemistry,
investigating the composition of the water of mineral springs. Few
men have ever formed a nobler conception of the true physician
than Van Helmont, or more earnestly endeavoured to live up to it.
Notwithstanding his mysticism, science owes much to this philosopher,
for he was an acute chemist. We owe to him the first application of the
term “gas,” in the sense in which it is used at present. He discovered
that gas is disengaged when heat is applied to various bodies, and when
acids act upon metals and their carbonates. He discovered carbonic
acid. He believed in the existence of an Archeus in man and animals,
which is somewhat like the soul of man after the Fall; it resides
in the stomach as creative thought, in the spleen as appetite. This
Archeus is a ferment, and is the generative principle and basis
of life. Disease is due to the Fall of Man. The Archeus influus
causes general diseases; the Archei insiti, local diseases: dropsy,
for example, is due to an obstruction of the passage of the kidney
secretion by the enraged Archeus. Van Helmont gave wine in fevers,
abhorred bleeding, and advocated the use of simple chemical medicines.

FRANCIS DE LA BOË (Sylvius), (1614-1672) was a physician who founded
the Medico-Chemical Sect amongst doctors. Health and disease he held to
be due to the relations of the fluids of the body and their neutrality,
diseases being caused by their acidity or alkalinity.

THOMAS GOULSTON, M.D. (died 1632), was a distinguished London
physician, who was not less famous for his classic learning and
theology than for the practice of his profession. He founded what are
known as the Goulstonian lectures, which are delivered by one of the
four youngest doctors of the Royal College of Physicians, London. “A
dead body was, if possible, to be procured, and two or more diseases
treated of.”

THOMAS WINSTON, M.D. (born 1575), was professor of physic in Gresham
College. His lectures included “an entire body of anatomy,” and were
considered, when published, as the most complete and accurate then
extant in English.

The Anatomy Lecture at Oxford was first proposed to the University on
Nov. 17th, 1623, with an endowment of £25 a year stipend. Out of this
the reader had “to pay yearly to a skilful Chirurgeon or Dissector of
the body, to be named by the said reader, the sums of and £3 and £2
more by the year towards the ordering and burying of the body.”[883]
Dr. Clayton, the King’s Professor of Physic, was the first reader, and
the first chirurgeon was Bernard Wright.[884]

GIOVANNI ALFONSO BORELLI (1608-1679), the founder of the Mathematical
School of Medicine, which attempted to subject to calculation the
phenomena of the living economy, was professor of medicine at Florence.
He restricted the application of his system chiefly to muscular
motions, or to those which are evidently of a mechanical character.
Physiology is exceedingly indebted to this school for many valuable
suggestions, and Boerhaave distinctly acknowledged them in his
_Institutions_.[885]

GEORGE JOYLIFFE, M.D. (died 1658), was partly concerned in the
discovery of the lymphatics. It is not possible to say precisely to
whom the discovery of the lymphatics was due; they seem to have been
observed independently about the year 1651 to 1652 by Rudbeck a Swede,
by Bartholine a Dane, and by Joyliffe.[886]

A new era in medicine was inaugurated by THOMAS SYDENHAM, M.D.
(1624-1689), “the British Hippocrates,” whose only standard was
observation and experience, and whose faith in the healing power
of nature was unlimited. He studied at Oxford, but he graduated at
Cambridge. He was the friend of Locke and of Robert Boyle. He was
looked upon by the faculty with disfavour as an innovator, because,
in his own words to Boyle, he endeavoured to reduce practice to a
greater easiness and plainness. His fame as the father of English
medicine was posthumous. It was indeed acknowledged in his lifetime
that he rendered good service to medicine by his “expectant” treatment
of small-pox, by his invention of his laudanum (the first form of a
tincture of opium such as we have it), and for his advocacy of the
use of Peruvian bark in agues. Yet his professional brethren were
inclined to look upon him as a sectary, and considerable opposition
was manifested towards him. Arbuthnot, in 1727, styled him “Æmulus
Hippocrates.” Boerhaave referred to him as “Angliæ lumen, artis Phœbum,
veram Hippocratici viri speciem.” He did the best he could to cure
his patients without mystery and resort to the traditional and often
ridiculous dogmas of the medical craft. Many good stories are extant
which illustrate this fact. He was once called to prescribe for a
gentleman who had been subjected to the lowering treatment so much
in vogue in those days. He found him pitifully depressed. Sydenham
“conceived that this was occasioned partly by his long illness, partly
by the previous evacuations, and partly by emptiness. I therefore
ordered him a roast chicken and a pint of canary.” When Blackmore first
engaged in the study of medicine, he asked Dr. Sydenham what authors he
should read, and was told to study DON QUIXOTE, “which,” he said, “is a
very good book; I read it still.” He used to say that there were cases
in his practice where “I have consulted my patients’ safety and my own
reputation most effectually by doing nothing at all.”

Sydenham, having long attended a rich man for an illness which had
arisen and was kept going chiefly by his own indolence and luxurious
habits, at last told him that he could do no more for him, but that
there lived at Inverness a certain physician, named Robinson, who would
doubtless be able to cure him. Provided with a letter of introduction
and a complete history of the “case,” the invalid set out on the long
journey to Inverness. Arrived at his destination, full of hope and
eager expectation of a cure, he inquired diligently for Dr. Robinson,
only to learn that there was no such doctor there, neither had there
been in the memory of the oldest inhabitant. The gentleman returned to
London full of indignation against Sydenham, whom he violently rated
for sending him so far on a fool’s errand. “But,” exclaimed Sydenham,
“you are in much better health!” “Yes,” replied the patient, “I am now
well enough, but no thanks to you.” “No,” answered Sydenham; “it was
Dr. Robinson who cured you. I wished to send you a journey with some
object and interest in view; in going, you had Dr. Robinson and his
wonderful cures in contemplation; and in returning, you were equally
engaged in thinking of scolding me.”

The Civil War, which violently upset the speculations and research at
Oxford, when, as Antony Wood says, the University was “empty as to
scholars, but pretty well replenished with Parliamentary soldiers,”
afforded just that stimulus to thought and that upheaval of dogma and
prejudice which were eminently favourable to the advance of medical
science. Men had learned to treat old doctrines with little respect for
their mere antiquity; authority was discredited, it was subjected to
test, observation and criticism; men no longer believed those doctrines
about God and His counsels which the Fathers and the Church taught them
about religion, much less were they inclined to bow to Aristotle and
Galen when they dictated to them on medicine. Anciently, when bitten
by a mad dog, it was enough for them to believe with the fathers of
medicine that it was sufficient for the patient to hold some herb
dittany in the left hand, while he scratched his back with the other
to ensure his future safety. Men took to thinking for themselves; the
spirit of investigation was aroused; men’s minds, in every condition
of society, in every town and village, were aroused to activity. There
probably never was a time when there was more activity of thought in
Oxford than at this period. The stimulus of collision evoked many
sparks of genius, and the Civil War produced at our Universities
wholesome disturbance, not destruction of any good things. Sydenham,
therefore, was distinctly the product of his age. He does not seem
to have been a very learned man, neither, on the other hand, was he
wholly untaught. There are not many evidences in his works of very
wide reading of medical literature, though he was a sincere admirer
of Hippocrates, evidently from a sound acquaintance with his works.
Sydenham’s first medical work was published in 1666. It consisted of
accounts of continued fevers, symptoms of the same, of intermittent
fevers and small-pox, and was entitled _Methodus Curandi Febres,
Propriis observationibus superstructa_. In it the author maintains that
“a fever is Nature’s engine which she brings into the field to remove
her enemy, or her handmaid, either for evacuating the impurities of
the blood, or for reducing it into a _new state_. Secondly, that the
true and genuine cure of this sickness consists in such a tempering
of the commotion of the blood, that it may neither exceed nor be too
languid.”[887]

It was about this period that Peruvian bark was first introduced into
European medicine. Perhaps no other drug has ever been so widely
and deservedly used as this American remedy for fevers, agues, and
debility. The earliest authenticated account of the use of Cinchona
bark in medicine is found in 1638, when the Countess of Cinchon, the
wife of the Governor of Peru, was cured of fever by its administration.
The Jesuit missionaries are said to have sent accounts of its virtues
to Europe, in consequence of one of their brethren having been cured of
fever by taking it at the suggestion of a South American Indian.

The University of Montpellier, at the time of our great Civil War, was
much derided by the Paris Faculty for its laxity in granting degrees
in medicine. The enemies of Montpellier said that a three-months’
residence, and the keeping of an act and opponency, sufficed to make a
man a Bachelor of Medicine. The professors were accused of neglecting
their lectures and selling their degrees; but, worse than all, it was
alleged that blood-letting and purging had fallen into disuse, and that
the Montpellier treatment was “more expectant than heroic, and more
tonic than evacuant.”[888] Friendly historians, on the other hand, say
that at this period the medicinal uses of calomel and antimony were
better taught there than elsewhere; that museums, libraries, and good
clinical teaching flourished, so as to afford the student excellent
means of acquiring a sound knowledge of his profession.[889]

WILLIAM HARVEY, M.D., the famous discoverer of the circulation of the
blood, and the greatest physiologist the world has ever seen, was born
at Folkestone, 1578. He entered Caius College, Cambridge, 1593. Having
taken his degree, he travelled through France and Germany, and then
visited Padua, the most celebrated school of medicine of that time.
Fabricius ab Aquâpendente was then professor of anatomy, Minadous
professor of medicine, and Casserius professor of surgery. In 1615
Harvey was appointed Lumleian lecturer, and he commenced his course of
lectures in the following year—the year of Shakespeare’s death.

In this course he is supposed to have expounded his views on the
circulation of the blood, which rendered his name immortal. His
celebrated work, _Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis_,
was published in 1628; but he says in that work that for more than nine
years he had confirmed and illustrated his opinion in his lectures, by
arguments which were founded on ocular demonstration. He was appointed
physician extraordinary to James I. in 1618. He was in attendance
on King Charles I. at the battle of Edgehill. The king had been an
enlightened patron of Harvey’s researches, and had placed the royal
deer parks at Hampton Court and Windsor at his disposal. In 1651
Harvey’s _Exercitationes de Generatione_ was published.

ARISTOTLE knew but little of the vessels of the body, yet he traced the
origin of all the veins to the heart, and he seems to have been aware
of the distinction between veins and arteries. “Every artery,” he says,
“is accompanied by a vein; the former are filled only with breath or
air.”[890]

Aristotle thought that the windpipe conveys air into the heart.
Although _Galen_ understood the muscles very well, he knew little
of the vessels. The liver he held to be the origin of the veins, and
the heart of the arteries. He knew, however, of their junctions or
anastomoses.[891]

MONDINO, the anatomist of Bologna, who dissected and taught in 1315,
had some idea of the circulation of the blood, for he says that the
heart transmits blood to the lungs.[892] The great Italian anatomists,
diligent students as they were of the human frame, all missed the
great discovery. SERVETUS, who was burnt by Calvin as a heretic in
Geneva in 1553, is the first person who distinctly describes the small
circulation, or that which carries the blood from the heart to the
lungs and back again to the heart. He says:[893] “The communication
between the right and left ventricles of the heart is made, not as
is commonly believed, through the partition of the heart, but by a
remarkable artifice the blood is carried from the right ventricle
by a long circuit through the lungs; is elaborated by the lungs,
made yellow, and transferred from the _vena arteriosa_ into the
_arteria venosa_.” Still, his theories are full of fancies about a
“_vital spirit_, which has its origin in the left ventricle,” and
are accordingly unscientific to that extent. Servetus was, however,
certainly the true predecessor of Harvey in physiology; this is
universally admitted.[894]

REALDUS COLUMBUS[895] is thought by some writers to have had a still
greater share than Servetus in the discovery of the circulation. He
denies the muscularity of the heart, yet correctly teaches that the
blood passes from the right to the left ventricle, not through the
partition in the heart but through the lungs. Harvey quotes Columbus,
but does not refer to Servetus. It must be remembered that when the
unfortunate Servetus was burnt at the stake, his work was destroyed
with him, and only two copies are known to have escaped the flames.[896]

The discovery of the valves of the veins by SYLVIUS and FABRICIUS[897]
undoubtedly was the chief factor in the preparation for Harvey’s
discovery of the circulation. It was he who first appreciated
their significance, and grasped the full meaning of the pulmonary
circulation. CÆSALPINUS, in his _Quæstiones Peripateticæ_ (1571), is
another claimant for the honours due to Harvey; he had certain confused
ideas of the general circulation, and he made some experiments which
enabled him to understand the pulmonary circulation, but he certainly
did not know the circulation of the blood as a whole; he knew no more
of it, in fact, than he gathered from Galen and Servetus.[898]

Even Harvey, splendid as was the work he did, could not entirely
demonstrate the complete circulation of the blood. He was not able
to discover the capillary vessels by which the blood passes from the
arteries to the veins. This, the only missing point, was reserved for
MALPIGHI to discover. In 1661 this celebrated anatomist saw in the
lungs of a frog, by the aid of the newly invented microscope, the blood
passing from one set of vessels to the other.

Harvey began his investigations by dissecting a great number of living
animals. He examined in this way dogs, pigs, serpents, frogs, and
fishes. He did not disdain to learn even from slugs, oysters, lobsters,
and insects, and the chick itself while still in the shell. He observed
and experimented upon the ventricles, the auricles, the arteries,
and the veins. He learned precisely the object of the valves of the
veins—to favour the flow of the blood towards the heart; and it was to
this latter observation, and not the vivisection, that he attributed
his splendid discovery.

“I remember,” says Boyle, “that when I asked our famous Harvey what
were the things that induced him to think of a circulation of the
blood, he answered me, that when he took notice that the valves in the
veins of so many parts of the body were so placed, that they gave a
free passage to the blood towards the heart, but opposed the passage
of the venal blood the contrary way, he was incited to imagine that
so provident a cause as Nature had not placed so many valves without
design; and no design seemed more probable than that the blood should
be sent through the arteries, and return through the veins, whose
valves did not oppose its cause that way.” What clear views of the
motions and pressure of a fluid circulating in ramifying tubes must
have been held by Harvey to enable him to deduce his discovery from a
contemplation of the simple valves! It was observation, experience,
which led him to this. “In every science,” he says,[899] “be it what
it will, a diligent observation is requisite, and sense itself must be
frequently consulted. We must not rely upon other men’s experience,
but our own, without which no man is a proper disciple of any part of
natural knowledge.”

Dr. J. H. Bridges, of the Local Government Board, delivered the
Harveian oration on October 20th, 1892, at the Royal College of
Physicians. Dr. Bridges said: “In his discovery William Harvey
employed every method of biological research, direct observation,
experiment, above all the great Aristotelian method of comparison to
which he himself attributes his success. His manuscript notes show how
freely he used it. They show that he had dissected no less than eighty
species of animals. It is sometimes said that experimentation on living
animals was the principal process of discovery. This I believe to be an
exaggerated view, though such experiments were effective in convincing
others of the discovery when made. It need not be said that no ethical
problem connected with this matter was recognised in Harvey’s time.
The first to recognise such a problem was that great and successful
experimenter, deep thinker, and humane man, Sir Charles Bell. What
were the effects of Harvey’s discovery? It was assuredly the most
momentous event in medical history since the time of Galen. It was the
first attempt to show that the processes of the human body followed or
accompanied each other by laws as certain and precise as those which
Kepler and Galileo were revealing in the solar system or on the earth’s
surface. Henceforth it became clear that all laws of force and energy
that operated in the inorganic world were applicable to the human body.”

The case for Harvey’s originality is well put by the author of the
article on Harvey in the _Dictionary of National Biography_. “The
modern controversy as to whether the discovery was taken from some
previous author is sufficiently refuted by the opinion of the opponents
of his views in his own time, who agreed in denouncing the doctrine
as new; by the laborious method of gradual demonstration obvious in
his book and lectures; and lastly, by the complete absence of lucid
demonstration of the action of the heart and course of the blood
in Cæsalpinus, Servetus, and all others who have been suggested as
possible originals of the discovery. It remains to this day the
greatest of the discoveries of physiology, and its whole honour belongs
to Harvey.”

“That there is one blood stream, common to both arteries and veins,
that the blood poured into the right auricle passes into the right
ventricle, that it is from there forced by the contraction of the
ventricular walls along the pulmonary artery through the lungs and
pulmonary veins to the left auricle, that it then passes into the
left ventricle to be distributed through the aorta to every part of
the animal body; and that the heart is the great propeller of this
perpetual motion, as in a circle. This is the great truth of the
motion of the heart and blood, commonly called the circulation, and
must for ever remain the glorious legacy of William Harvey to rational
physiology and medicine in every land.”[900]

Harvey explains how he was led to his great discovery: “When I first
gave my mind to vivisections as a means of discovering the motions and
uses of the heart, and sought to discover these from actual inspection,
and not from the writings of others, I found the task so truly arduous,
so full of difficulties, that I was almost tempted to think with
Frascatorius, that the motion of the heart was only to be comprehended
by God. For I could neither rightly perceive at first when the systole
and when the diastole took place, nor when and where dilatation and
contraction occurred, by reason of the rapidity of the motion, which
in many animals is accomplished in the twinkling of an eye, coming and
going like a flash of lightning; so that the systole presented itself
to me now from this point, now from that; the diastole the same; and
then everything was reversed, the motions occurring, as it seemed,
variously and confusedly together. My mind was therefore greatly
unsettled, nor did I know what I should myself conclude, nor what
believe from others. I was not surprised that Andreas Laurentius should
have written that the motion of the heart was as perplexing as the flux
and reflux of Euripus had appeared to Aristotle. At length, and by
using greater diligence and investigation, making frequent inspection
of many and various animals, and collating numerous observations, I
thought that I had attained to the truth, that I should extricate
myself and escape from this labyrinth, and that I had discovered
what I so much desired, both the motion and the use of the heart and
arteries.”[901]

JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704). The great philosopher was a thoroughly educated
physician engaged in the practice of medicine. He was the friend of
Sydenham, whose principles he defended and whose works are doubtless
permeated with the thoughts of the author of the famous treatise on the
Human Understanding. In a letter of Locke’s to W. Molyneux he says:
“You cannot imagine how far a little observation carefully made by
a man not tied up to the four humours [Galen], or sal, sulphur, and
mercury [Paracelsus], or to acid and alkali [Sylvius and Willis], which
has of late prevailed, will carry a man in the curing of diseases,
though very stubborn and dangerous; and that with very little and
common things, and almost no medicine at all.” Locke declared that
we have no innate ideas, but that all our knowledge is derived from
experience. The acquirement of knowledge is due to the investigation of
things by the bodily senses.

Surgery about this period began to flourish in England. RICHARD
WISEMAN (1625-1686), the “Father of English Surgery,” was in the royal
service from Charles I. to James II. His military experience greatly
assisted him in his profession. He treated aneurism by compression,
practised “flap-amputation,” and laid down rules for operating for
hernia.

JAMES PRIMROSE, M.D. (died 1659), was a voluminous writer who opposed
the teaching of Harvey on the circulation of the blood.

BALDWIN HAMEY, jun., M.D., was the most munificent of all the
benefactors of the London College of Physicians. He was lecturer on
Anatomy at the College in 1647, and a voluminous writer, though he
published little or nothing.

FRANCIS GLISSON, M.D. (died 1677), was one of the first of the group
of anatomists in England who, incited by Harvey’s example, devoted
themselves to enthusiastic research. His account of the cellular
envelope of the portal vein in his work _De Hepate_, published in 1654,
has immortalised his name in the designation “Glisson’s capsule.” He
wrote a work on rickets, _De Rachitide seu Morbo Puerili_. Glisson
ascribed to the lymphatic vessels the function of absorption.

JONATHAN GODDARD, M.D. (died 1674), frequented the meetings which gave
birth to the Royal Society. He was a good chemist, and invented the
famous volatile drops known on the Continent as the Guttæ Anglicanæ. He
made the first telescope ever constructed in this country.

DANIEL WHISTLER, M.D. (died 1684), wrote an essay on “The Rickets,”
which is the earliest printed account we have of that disease.

THOMAS WHARTON, M.D. (died 1673), was a very distinguished anatomist,
who remained in London during the whole of the plague of 1666. He was
the author of the most accurate work on the glands of the body and
their diseases which up to that time had appeared.

RAYMOND VIEUSSENS in 1684 published a great work on the anatomy of the
brain, spinal cord, and nerves. He investigated the sympathetic nerve
and the structure of the heart.

LEEUWENHOECK (1632-1723) discovered the corpuscles in the blood and the
spermatozoa.

MARCELLO MALPIGHI (1628-1694), by his microscopical researches, first
explained the organization of the lung and the terminations of the
bronchial tubes. He traced the termination of the arteries in the
veins, and thus completed the discovery of the circulation of the
blood; by his researches in the deeper layer of the cuticle, and
certain bodies in the spleen and kidney, he has given his name to these
structures.

The invention of the MICROSCOPE in 1621 was of the utmost importance to
the study of minute anatomy and physiology.

PIERRE DIONIS (died 1718), a famous French surgeon, published a work on
the anatomy of man, which was translated into Chinese at the emperor’s
request. He also wrote on rickets in relation to the pelvis, and
advanced the study of dentistry. He explained the circulation, and
wrote a monograph on catalepsy.

THOMAS BARTHOLIN (1619-1680), professor of anatomy at Copenhagen, made
important investigations on the lacteals and lymphatic vessels.

CASPAR ASSELLIUS (1581-1626) discovered the chyliferous vessels in the
dog; FABRICE DE PEIRESC (1580-1637), dissecting a criminal two hours
after execution, discovered them in man; VAN HORNE (1621-1670), in
1652, first demonstrated the vessels in man. (It has, however, been
claimed that George Jolyffe discovered the lymphatics in 1650.)

JEAN PECQUET (1622-1674), a French physician, published, in 1651, his
_New Anatomical Experiments_, in which he made known his discovery
of the receptacle of the chyle, till then unknown, and described the
vessel which conveys the chyle to the subclavian vein.

OLAUS RUDBECK (1630-1702), a Swedish surgeon, shares with Jolyffe the
honour of the discovery of the termination of the lymphatic vessels. He
demonstrated them in the presence of Queen Christina, and traced them
to the thoracic duct, and the latter to the subclavian vein.

GERARD BLAES (died 1662) made numerous discoveries in connection with
the glands.

ANTONY NUCK (1650-1692) first injected the lymphatics with quicksilver,
rectified various errors in the work of his predecessors, and by his
own researches did much to complete the anatomy of the glands.

PAUL SARPI (1552-1623), of Venice, was a monk of whom La Courayer
said, “Qu’il était Catholique en gros et quelque fois Protestant en
détail.” He was the friend of Galileo, and, though he did not invent
the telescope, was the first who made an accurate map of the moon.
It is not true that he anticipated Harvey in his discovery of the
circulation, though he was a great physiologist, and discovered the
contractility of the iris.

NATHANAEL HIGHMORE (1613-1685) was a physician and anatomist who is
chiefly remembered for his description of the cavity in the superior
maxillary bone which bears his name. It had, however, been previously
described by Cassørius. He demonstrated the difference between the
lacteals and the mesenteric veins.

GEORGE WIRSUNG (died 1643) was a prosector to Vesalius. He discovered
the excretory duct of the pancreas.

SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN (1632-1723) was the first to suggest the injection
of medicines into the veins.

THORBERN, a Danish peasant, about this time invented an instrument for
amputating the elongated uvula.

JAN SWAMMERDAM (1637-1686) was the first to prove that the queen bee
was a female.

THOMAS MILLINGTON (_circ._ 1676) pointed out the sexual organs of
plants.

FELIX VICQ D’AZYR (1748-1794) was one of the zoologists whose
researches exercised an important influence on the progress of anatomy.
He investigated the origin of the brain and nerves, and the comparative
anatomy of the vocal organs.

SIR THOMAS BROWNE, M.D., of Norwich (1605-1682), the author of the
immortal _Religio Medici_, studied medicine at Montpellier, Padua, and
Leyden. He was a man who, in his own words, _could not do nothing_.
Though he wrote a famous work on _Vulgar Errors_, he could not rise
superior to the commonest one of his time—the belief in witchcraft.

THOMAS WILLIS, M.D. (1621-1675), was celebrated for his researches in
the anatomy and pathology of the brain. Unfortunately he neglected
observation for theorising.

Dr. Freind said of Willis that he was the first inventor of the nervous
system. Willis taught that the cerebrum is the seat of the intellectual
faculties, and the source from which spring the voluntary motions. He
consigned the involuntary motions to the cerebellum; these go on in a
regular manner, without our knowledge and independently of our will. He
supposed that the nerves of voluntary motions arise chiefly from the
cerebrum, and those of the involuntary motions from the cerebellum or
its appendages.[902]

Willis deserves to be gratefully remembered in medical history as the
great reformer of pharmacology. Having been led to consider how it is
that medicines act on the various organs of the body, he reflected that
there was usually very little relationship between the means of cure
and the physiological and pathological processes to be influenced.
Medicines were given at random. Mineral poisons, such as antimony, were
recklessly prescribed, to the destruction, not of the disease only, but
too frequently of the patient also. “So heedlessly,” says Willis, “are
these executioners in the habit of sporting with the human body, while
they are led to prepare and administer these dangerous medicines, not
by any deliberation, nor by the guidance of any method, but by mere
hazard and blind impulse.”[903]

The object of Willis was to establish a direct and reasonable
relationship between the physiological and morbid conditions of the
body on the one hand, and the indications for cure and the therapeutic
means by which these were to be brought about on the other.[904] It was
a great task, and Willis did not wholly succeed; but his method was
the right one, however grievously he failed to carry it into practice,
for he prescribed blood, the human skull, salt of vipers, water of
snails and earthworms, millipeds, and other things which he ought to
have known could have no effect on any disease.[905] We must not be too
severely critical, for Willis was the first to attempt the reformation
of this degraded state of Materia Medica.

The state of Materia Medica (or the drugs and chemicals used by the
physician) during the end of the seventeenth and the earlier part of
the eighteenth century, was remarkable, says Dr. Thomson,[906] for four
circumstances.

_First_, there was a great number of remedies strongly recommended for
the cure of diseases; but many of them were inert and useless, and thus
the practitioner was perplexed and confused.

_Secondly_, the popular confidence in all these medicines was
irrational and extreme.

_Thirdly_, it was the custom to combine in one prescription a great
number of ingredients. The Pharmacopœias of the period contain formulæ
which embraced in some instances from twenty-four up to as many as
fifty-two ingredients. Sydenham is the first who exhibits any tendency
to greater simplicity in his prescriptions.

_Lastly_, there was no rational or logical connection between the
disease to be cured and the remedy with which it was treated.
Empiricism and superstition to a serious extent dominated medicine, and
retarded its progress.

Yet, even during the seventeenth century, original thinkers and men
of genius connected with one or other of the universities, struck
out a path for themselves which led to brighter things. First was
Harvey, then came Wharton, Glisson, Willis, Lower, Mayow, Grew,
Charleton, Collins, Sydenham, Morton, Bennet, and Ridley; all these
men were students of anatomy and ardent investigators in the field of
physiology. It is true that it was long before the labours of these
pioneers of scientific medicine resulted in any marked improvement in
the actual method of treating disease; it is no less certain that our
methods of to-day are based upon the labours of the great scientific
investigators of the age we are considering.

SAMUEL COLLINS, M.D. (died 1710), was celebrated as an accomplished
comparative anatomist, whose work was much praised by Boerhaave and
Haller.

WILLIAM CROONE, M.D. (died 1684), was one of the original Fellows of
the Royal Society. In 1670 he was appointed lecturer on anatomy at
Surgeons’ Hall. He is gratefully remembered as the founder of what is
now called the “Croonian Lecture.”

RICHARD LOWER, M.D. (1631-1691), was an anatomist and physiologist,
who assisted Willis in his researches, and who wrote a treatise on
transfusion of blood, which he practised at Oxford in 1665, and also
before the Royal Society. His name is kept in remembrance by anatomists
by its association with the study of the heart in the structure known
as the “tuberculum Lowerii.”

We must not omit to mention FRÈRE JACQUES, who went to Paris in 1697;
he was a Franciscan monk, who was a famous operator for the stone.
Originally a day labourer, he became so expert a lithotomist that he
is said to have cut nearly 5,000 persons in the course of his life. In
the height of his success he had no knowledge of anatomy, though he
was afterwards induced to learn it. He is for ever celebrated as the
inventor of the lateral method in lithotomy.[907]




CHAPTER III.

SKATOLOGICAL MEDICINE AND THE REFORM OF PHARMACOLOGY.

 Loathsome Medicines.—Sympathetical Cures.—Weapon-Salve.—Superstitions.


Notwithstanding all the splendid scientific work of the period, the
absurdest superstitions about amulets and charms still held their
ground. Sir John Harrington, in his _Schoole of Salerne_, printed in
1624, says: “Alwaies in your hands use eyther Corall or yellow Amber,
or a chalcedonium, or a sweet Pommander, or some like precious stone
to be worne in a ring upon the little finger of the left hand; have
in your rings eyther a Smaragd, a Saphire, or a Draconites, which you
shall beare for an ornament; for in stones, as also in hearbes, there
is great efficacie and vertue, but they are not altogether perceived by
us; hold sometime in your mouth eyther a Hyacinth, or a Crystall, or a
Granat, or pure Gold, or Silver, or else sometimes pure Sugar-candy.
For _Aristotle_ doth affirme, and so doth Albertus Magnus, that a
Smaragd worne about the necke, is good against the Falling-sicknes; for
surely the virtue of an hearbe is great, but much more the vertue of a
precious stone, which is very likely that they are endued with occult
and hidden vertues.”


MATERIA MEDICA.

Amongst those who, after Willis, laboured to reform pharmacology may be
mentioned—

JOHN ZWELFER, a learned physician of Vienna, who published in 1651 a
greatly improved Pharmacopœia, which rejected many useless and improper
medicines.

DANIEL LUDWIG in 1671 published a dissertation on useless and
unsatisfactory drugs. He denied the virtues of earthworms, toads, and
the like.

MOSES CHARAS (1618-1698) was a pharmacist of Paris, who founded the
historical establishment known as the _Vipères d’or_ of that city.
Seventeenth-century pharmacy owed much to this man, who was “one
of the last of the Arabian polypharmacists, one of the last of the
adepts of expiring alchemy, and the immediate precursor of the epoch
of Lemery.”[908] He studied pharmacy at Montpellier. He was acquainted
with natural history.

No history of medicine would be complete without reference to the
immense number of loathsome and filthy substances which from the
remotest times, even up to the present, have been used as medicines.
This subject has been treated in a very complete form by Captain Bourke
in his work on _Skatological Rites of all Nations_, an important
section of which is devoted to “Skatological Medicine.”[909] The
theory underlying the use of disgusting remedies seems to be this:
Nearly all medicines which have any efficacy are unpleasant to take;
a bitter infusion of tonic leaves or roots is not usually agreeable;
many good medicines are very nasty, but their efficacy is universally
acknowledged. Ignorant persons argue that the nastiness is the sign of
the efficacy; that the more disgusting the potion or pill, the more
good it will do. Even at the present day pauper and hospital patients
of the lower classes have no faith in medicines which are not dark in
colour and rich in sediment; elegant pharmacy would soon destroy the
best East-End practice. The most repulsive sediment in a mixture is
readily swallowed, and is usually considered highly “nourishing.” Now
from nasty herbal medicines to filthy animal excretions is but a short
step. Pliny gives hundreds of instances of skatological remedies in his
_Natural History_, and the ancient writers frequently prescribe them.
They consist of such things as the dung and urine of various animals,
not excepting those of man, of the catamenial and lochial discharges,
of the sweat of athletes, of the parasites of human and animal bodies,
of ear wax, human blood, etc.

“XENOCRATES OF APHRODISIAS (about A.D. 70) introduced disgusting filth
as medicines; _e.g._, ear wax, catamenial fluid, human flesh, bats’
blood, etc.”[910]

“ASCLEPIADES PHARMACION (about A.D. 100) recommended even animal
excrement as a medicine.”[911]

QUINTUS SERENUS SAMONICUS (died A.D. 211) prescribed mouse dung in
poultices; goats’ urine internally for stone in the bladder; earth and
dung from a wagon rut for colic, externally.[912]

MARCELLUS EMPIRICUS, physician to Theodosius (345-395), prescribed
natural pills of rabbit’s dung. Dr. Baas declares that this remedy is
in use on the Rhine at the present day, as a cure for consumption.[913]

Culpeper, in his translation of the Pharmacopœia (1653), ridicules the
remedies enumerated in that work. Thus the College of Physicians employ
“the fat, grease, or suet of a duck, goose, eel, bore, heron, thymallos
(‘_if you know where to get it_,’ says Culpeper), dog, capon, bever,
wild cat, stork, hedgehog, hen, man, lyon, hare, kite, or jack (_if
they have any fat, I am persuaded ’tis worth twelve pence the grain_),
wolf, mouse of the mountains (_if you can catch them_), pardal, hog,
serpent, badger, bear, fox, vulture (_if you can catch them_), album
græcum, east and west benzoar, stone taken out a man’s bladder,
viper’s flesh, the brain of hares and sparrows, the rennet of a lamb,
kid, hare, and a calf and a horse too (_quoth the colledg_) [_they
should have put the rennet of an ass to make medicine for their addle
brains_], the excrement of a goose, of a dog, of a goat, of pidgeons,
of a stone horse, of swallows, of men, of women, of mice, of peacocks,”
etc., etc.

There was, says Southey,[914] a water of man’s blood which in Queen
Elizabeth’s day was a new invention, “whereof some princes had very
great estimation, and used it for to remain thereby in their force,
and, as they thought, to live long.” They chose a strong young man
of twenty-five, dieted him for a month on the best meats, wines and
spices, and at the month’s end they bled him in both arms as much as he
could “tolerate and abide.” They added a handful of salt to six pounds
of this blood, and distilled it seven times, pouring water upon the
residuum after every distillation. An ounce of this was to be taken
three or four times a year. As the life was thought to be in the blood,
it was believed it could thus be transferred.

Dr. O. Möller says that in Denmark, even now in some few places, human
excrements are not entirely obsolete as epispastic applications in
inflammation of the breast.[915]

Dr. Baas says[916] that urine is taken in the Rhine provinces in fevers
instead of quinine. This was recommended by the surgical writer Schmidt
in 1649. In the seventeenth century the old pharmacies of Germany
contained, amongst other disgusting remedies, frog-spawn water, mole’s
blood, oil of spiders, snake’s tongue, mouse dung, spirits of human
brain, urine of a new-born child, etc.[917] The dung of screech-owls
was prescribed for melancholy, as also was the dung of doves and calves
boiled in wine, ox-dung, etc. Dog-dung and fleas boiled with sage was a
medicine for gout, and death-sweat was used as a cure for warts.[918]

Mould from the churchyard is used in some parts of Ireland and in
Shetland medicinally. Clay or mould from a priest’s grave boiled with
milk is given as a decoction for the cure of disease.[919] The dew
collected from the grave of the last man buried in a churchyard has
been used as a lotion for goitre. It is so employed at Launceston.[920]
In Shetland a stitch in the side was treated by applying mould dug
from a grave and heated, the mould was to be taken from and returned
to the grave before sunset.[921] In Lincolnshire a portion of a human
skull taken from the grave was grated and given to epileptics for the
cure of fits. A similar custom prevailed in Kirkwall, at Caithness,
and the Western islands—the patient was made to drink from a suicide’s
skull.[922]

In the year 1852 I saw amongst the more precious drugs in the shop of a
pharmaceutical chemist at Leamington a bottle labelled in the ordinary
way with the words, “Moss from a Dead-Man’s Skull.” This has long been
used superstitiously, dried, powdered, and taken as snuff, for headache
and bleeding at the nose.[923]


SYMPATHETICAL CURES.

A curious chapter in the history of surgery is found in the popular
belief in “sympathetical cures,” which prevailed in the reigns of
James I. and Charles I. Sir Kenelm Digby professed to have introduced
a method of curing wounds by the “powder of sympathy.” Dr. Pettigrew,,
in his _Superstitions of Medicine and Surgery_, says that a Mr. James
Howel, endeavouring to part some friends who were fighting a duel,
received a severe wound in his hand. The king sent one of his own
surgeons to attend him; but as the wound did not make good progress,
application was made to Sir Kenelm Digby, who first inquired if the
patient had any article which had the blood upon it. Mr. Howel sent
for the garter with which his hand had been bound; then a basin of
water having been brought, Sir Kenelm dissolved therein some powder of
vitriol, and immersed the bloody garter in the solution. The patient
was instructed to lay aside all his plasters and keep the wound clean
and in a moderate temperature. All the while the garter lay in the
solution of vitriol. The patient did well; probably if it had been
applied to the injured part it would have made it worse. In the course
of five or six days the wound was cicatrized and a cure effected. Sir
Kenelm professed to have learned the secret from a Carmelite friar.
It was communicated to the king’s physician, Dr. Mayerne, and before
long every country barber knew of it. Sir Kenelm Digby discoursed on
the matter before an assembly of nobles and learned men at Montpellier
in France, and endeavoured to explain the action of his powder by all
sorts of conjectures, as emanation of light, the action of impinging
rays, etc. He tried to prove that the spirit which emanated from
the vitriol became incorporated with the blood, and there met the
exhalation of hot spirits from the inflamed part.

Infinitely simpler, however, was the process of cure. Nature, left to
herself, did the whole of the work. It seemed, as Dr. Pettigrew says,
that it had hitherto been the practice of surgeons to place every
obstacle in the way of the union of severed parts of the body. What
with ointments and various more or less filthy applications, the edges
of the wound were kept apart, and so the healing process was retarded.

Of a kindred character to the “powder of sympathy” was the “weapon
salve” of the period. Instead of anointing the wound, the knife, axe,
or other instrument which caused it was smeared with ointment and the
weapon was then carefully wrapped up and put away. Dryden refers to
this same “weapon salve” in the “Tempest,” Act V. sc. 1. Dr. Pettigrew
says that the practice was at one time very general.[924]

The principle underlying the doctrine of sympathetic powders was
explained by Sir Kenelm thus: “In time of common contagion they use
to carry about them the powder of a toad, and sometimes a living toad
or spider shut up in a box; or else they carry arsenic, or some other
venomous substance, which draws unto it the contagious air, which
otherwise would infect the party; and the same powder of toad draws
unto it the poison of a pestilential cold. The scurf or farcy is a
venomous and contagious humour within the body of a horse; hang a toad
about the neck of the horse in a little bag, and he will be cured
infallibly; the toad, which is the stronger poison, drawing to it the
venom which was within the horse.”[925]

The same author says that persons of ill breath can be cured by holding
their mouths open at a cesspool, the greater stink having the power to
draw away the less.[926]

In the reign of Charles II. a gentleman named Valentine Greatrakes, of
a good family and education, “felt an impulse that the gift of curing
the king’s evil was bestowed upon him.” He published an account of his
cures of this and other diseases, ague, epilepsy, and palsy, and some
other complaints more or less connected with the nervous system, in a
letter to the Hon. Robert Boyle. He seems to have performed his cures,
which were by some persons considered miraculous, by a kind of massage,
or “by the Stroaking of the Hands.” The cures were simply the effect of
an excited imagination.[927]




CHAPTER IV.

BATHS AND MINERAL WATERS.

 Miraculous Springs.—The Pool of Bethesda.—Herb-baths.


Especially in Germany mineral waters achieved great popularity in the
treatment of diseases in the seventeenth century.

In ancient times, according to Pliny, Paulus Ægineta, and others,
mineral waters were recognised as possessing curative effects, and
the temples of health were frequently erected in contiguity to these
powerful aids to treatment. Savages are everywhere fully aware of
the value of such medicinal waters, and avail themselves of their
benefits. Hot springs, wherever they occur, are highly esteemed by the
natives. Humboldt states that on Christianity being introduced into
Iceland, the natives refused to be baptized in any but the waters of
the geysers.[928] Hooker tells us that in the hot springs of Yeuntong,
which burst from the bank of the Lachen, in the Himalayas, the natives
remain three days at a time, bathing in the saline and slightly
sulphuretted waters. No better treatment for certain forms of skin
diseases could be followed.[929] Such a course of treatment is carried
out now at the baths of Leuk, in Switzerland, amongst other places.
There the patients take their meals and play cards, chess, draughts,
etc., while up to their necks in the warm medicinal waters. Hooker
tells us, again, of the use of hot baths amongst the Sikkim Bhoteeas.
The bath consists of a hollowed prostrate tree trunk, the water of
which is heated by throwing in hot stones with bamboo tongs. They
can raise the temperature to 114°, the patient submitting to this at
intervals for several days, never leaving till wholly exhausted.[930]

Dr. Mead[931] thinks that the Pool of Bethesda, spoken of in the Gospel
of St. John, chap, v., was a medicinal bath, whose virtues principally
resided in the mud which settled at the bottom. It was necessary,
therefore, that the pool should be “troubled,” that is to say, stirred
up, so that the person bathing therein might derive benefit from the
metallic salts, “perhaps from sulphur, alum, or nitre,” which settled
at the bottom. Celsus and Pliny recommend medicinal baths for nervous
disorders. Pliny particularly advises aluminous baths for paralytics,
and adds that “They use the mud of those fountains with advantage,
especially if, when it is rubbed on, it be suffered to dry in the
sun.”[932]

Many curious instances of the superstitious uses made of holy wells
in the treatment of disease, in which customs the elements of magic
ritual are not difficult to discover, are given in Gomme’s _Ethnology
in Folklore_, pp. 97-99.

Eight miles from Munich lies the village of Heilbrunn (healing spring);
tradition says it is the oldest medicinal spring in Bavaria. Near the
spring was a monastery, said to have been destroyed and the well choked
with the _débris_ in 935 A.D. In 1509 the monks made some excavations,
and the source of the spring was discovered; at the same time flames
burst forth over it, the phenomena being of course attributed to a
miracle. The reputation of the medicinal waters brought the Elector’s
wife to the spot in 1659; she derived such benefit from the visit
that the spring was named after the princess—Adelheid’s Quelle. It
became famous amongst the country people for the cure of scrofulous
and other diseases. In 1825 Dr. A. Vogel, of Munich, analysed the
waters, and found them to contain iodine in important quantity. This
led to the deepening and improvement of the spring, and in the course
of the operations one of the workmen brought a lighted candle close
to the surface of the water; the gas, escaping in bubbles, at once
caught fire, and the miracle of 1509 was explained. The fact is that
a considerable amount of carburetted hydrogen floats over the surface
of the water, and will readily take fire when in contact with a light.
Recent analysis of the water shows that it contains bromine, iodine,
and chloride of sodium, sulphate of soda, carbonates of soda, lime,
magnesia, and iron. It is altogether one of the most remarkable of the
medicinal springs, and its composition explains its value in calming
and soothing the mucous membrance of the stomach and other organs. Its
curative effects have been proved in scrofula, glandular swellings,
bronchial affections, mesenteric and female disorders.[933]

Baths impregnated with vegetable extracts and odours have long been
in use. Pine-leaves are at present largely employed, and baths of
conium, lavender, hyssop, etc., are still used as sedatives. Anciently
baths of this kind were as complicated in character as the medicines
administered internally.

Here is an ancient prescription for a medicinal bath:—


THE MAKYNG OF A BATHE MEDICINABLE.[934]

  “Holy hokke and yardehok peritory[935] and the broun fenelle,[936]
  Walle wort[937] herbe John[938] Sentory[939] rybbewort[940] and
     cammamelle,
  Hey hove[941] heyriff[942] herbe benet[943] brese wort[944] and small
     ache,[945]
  Broke lempk[946] Scabiose[947] Bilgres wild flax is good for ache;
  Wethy leves, grene otes boyld in fere fulle soft,
  Cast them hote in to a vesselle and sett your soverayn alloft,
  And suffire that hete a while as hoot as he may a-bide;
  Se that place be couered welle over and close on every side;
  And what dissese ye be vexed with, grevaunce outher peyn,
  This medicyne shalle make yow hoole surely, as men seyn.”[948]

George Herbert, in his _Priest to the Temple_, enumerates the duties of
the parson’s wife, and extols the virtues of these homely remedies.
“For salves, his wife seeks not the city, but prefers her gardens
and fields before all out-landish gums; and surely hyssop, valerian,
mercury, adder’s tongue, melilot, and St. John’s wort, made into a
salve, and elder, comphrey, and smallage, made into a poultice, have
done great and rare cures.”




CHAPTER V.

WITCHCRAFT AND MEDICINE.

 Comparative Witchcraft.—Laws against Sorcery.—Magic in Virgil
 and Horace.—Demonology.—Images of Wax and Clay.—Transference of
 Disease.—Witchcraft in the Koran.—White Magic and Black.—Coral and the
 Evil Eye.—“Overlooking” People.—Exorcism in the Catholic Church.


COMPARATIVE WITCHCRAFT.

“Witches and impostors,” said Bacon, “have always held a competition
with physicians.” The History of Medicine, therefore, demands some
notice of the strange delusions which have exerted the most terrible
influence over the minds of men in all ages and in all stages of
civilization. Nothing in the history of the human species is older than
the belief in magic, and it will be found that the practices of the
savage in this connection have their analogies amongst ourselves at
the present day. Gipsy craft, fortune telling, dream interpretation,
spiritualism, the miracles of the theosophists, may all be traced in
the customs and practices of savage tribes. They are survivals which
will not be got rid of probably for centuries to come. Education, so
far from delivering us from the bondage, has curiously enough in many
cases served but to rivet the chains more firmly. In the chapters on
the demon theory of disease, much light has been thrown on the origin
of our belief in the influence of spirits good and bad. Trials in
England connected with witchcraft were most numerous in the seventeenth
century. The most interesting is that of the Suffolk witches, when Sir
Matthew Hale was the judge and Sir Thomas Browne the medical expert
witness. This excellent and learned physician testified that certain
children, said to have been bewitched, suffered from fits, heightened
to great excess by the subtlety of the devil co-operating with the
witches. The report alleges that after conviction of the accused the
children immediately recovered.

While condemning the cruelty and severity of the laws against
witchcraft, and reflecting on the injustice and ignorance with which
they were enforced, we must remember that in many cases sorcerers and
other dabblers in black magic have added to their supposed supernatural
methods the very real and serious arts of the poisoner, and the not
less real, though purely mental influences of terror and alarm. To
know that an evil-minded person was compassing one’s death or was
busied in bringing about, by diabolical influences, some dreadful
sickness or other injury to one’s person, was quite sufficient, in
ignorant and superstitious times, to effect all the evil which it was
in the mind of the magician or witch to induce. But probably there
never was a regular professional sorcerer who did not use the actual
weapons of poison, or deleterious drugs of some kind or other, to
assist his evil intentions. In the case of the trial of the Countess of
Somerset, in 1616, a charge of witchcraft was joined with the charge of
poisoning Sir Thomas Overbury.[949] Witchcraft and murder were combined
in the Master of Orkney’s case. The last case ever brought before the
“Chambre Ardente” in France resulted in the condemnation, in 1680, of
a woman named Voisin, for sorcery and poisoning, in connection with
the Marquise de Brinvilliers. But even apart from considerations of
material injury, the mental impressions are often fatal enough; thus,
in the Pacific Islands, to quote but one instance, magical arts have
been proved effective through the patient’s own imagination. “When he
knows or fancies that he has been bewitched, he will fall ill, and he
will actually die unless he can be persuaded that he has been cured.
Thus, wherever sorcery is practised with the belief of its victims,
some system of exorcism or some protective magical art becomes, not
only necessary, but actually effective—a mental disease being met by
a mental remedy to match it.”[950] Hearne, when travelling in North
America, was entreated by an Indian to give him a charm against an
enemy (savages and primitive folk are great believers in white men as
magicians). Hearne complied, and for fun, drew on a sheet of paper
some circles, signs, and words. The Indian took care to let his victim
know that he had “medicine” against him, and the poor wretch fell sick
immediately, and shortly afterwards died. Cockayne quotes from Wier an
account of a woman who wore an amulet to cure bad eyes, which were made
worse by her constantly flowing tears. Some one who hated sorceries
induced her to open and examine the charm. When unfolded, the paper
showed nothing but these words: “May the devil scratch thine eyes
out, and —— in the holes.” As soon as the woman saw how she had been
deceived, she lost faith, took to crying again, and her eyes became as
bad as ever.[951]


LAW AGAINST SORCERY.

At the accession of James I. of England, a law against witchcraft was
passed, which continued in force for more than a century. We quote it
in full (1 Jac. i. c. 12):—

“If any person or persons shall use, practise, or exercise any
invocation or conjuration of any evil and wicked spirit, or shall
consult, covenant with, entertain, employ, feed, or reward any evil and
wicked spirit, to or for any intent or purpose, or take up any dead
man, woman, or child out of his, her, or their grave, or any other
place where the dead body resteth, or the skin, bone, or any part of
any dead person, to be employed or used in any manner of witchcraft,
sorcery, charm, or enchantment, or shall use, practise, or exercise any
witchcraft, enchantment, charm, or sorcery, whereby any person shall be
killed, destroyed, wasted, consumed, pined, or lamed in his or her body
or any part thereof, every such offender is a felon without benefit of
clergy.”


MAGIC AND MEDICINE.

Pliny says that the art of magic first originated in medicine, and that
under the guise of promoting health it insinuated itself among mankind
as a higher and more holy branch of the medical art. Then it added the
religious element, and lastly incorporated with itself the astrological
art, and so enthralled the senses of man by a three-fold bond.[952]


MAGIC IN VIRGIL AND HORACE.

The sorceress of Virgil is a witch whose ancestry we shall have no
difficulty in tracing anthropologically. We can discover her lineage
from the parent witches of savage tribes, and we detect her offspring
in the sorceress of our own times. She burns vervain and frankincense,
chaunts a solemn lay, binds the victim’s image with fillets of three
colours, and in binding the knots makes the attendant say, “Thus do
I bind the fillets of Venus.” One wax and one clay image are placed
before the fire, and as the clay image hardens, so does the heart of
Daphnis harden towards his new mistress; and as the wax softens, so is
the heart of Daphnis made tender towards the sorceress. She buries the
relics of what had belonged to Daphnis beneath her threshold; bruises
poisonous plants from Pontus to enable him to transform himself into a
wolf, and orders her attendant to cast the ashes of these herbs over
her head into a running stream, at the same time taking care not to
glance behind her.[953] Horace also describes the concoction of a charm
in a perfectly orthodox style whose family history is intelligible
enough to the student of comparative sorcery. There is nothing in the
classic witchcraft which does not exist to-day in the islands of savage
peoples, and the methods of medicine-men in primitive forests.


IMAGES OF WAX, ETC., IN SORCERY.

A very widespread and ancient method of compassing a person’s death
by witchcraft is that of making a figure in wax, or other plastic
material, to represent the victim of the incantation. The object seems
to be the concentration of will-power to effect the wishes of the
user of the charm. There is an innate belief that words are creative
symbols; it may be derived from the perception of the power of man to
effect that which he desires earnestly to effect, so that “whenever a
good or evil wish,” as Dr. Tylor says, “is uttered in words, it becomes
a blessing or curse.” This idea lies at the root of what is called
“Christian science healing,” _i.e._ healing by good wishes. In its evil
form we have an ancient example in Ovid’s sorceress:[954]—

King James, in his _Dæmonology_, says that “The devil teacheth how to
make pictures of wax or clay, that by roasting thereof the persons
that they bear the name of may be continually melted or dried away by
continual sickness.”

So the Governor-General of a Chinese province recently issued a
proclamation, whereby it was declared unlawful to bring about the death
of others by incantations. “You are forbidden,” said Governor Wang,
“if you have a grudge against any one, to practise the magic called
‘Striking the Bull’s Head,’ that is to say, writing a man’s name and
age on a scrap of paper, and laying it before the bull-headed idol,
and then buying an iron stamp and piercing small holes in this paper,
and finally throwing it at the man on the sly, with the intention of
compassing his death.”[955]

“So recently,” says the authoress of _Wanderings in China_, “as
December, 1883, a case was tried at the Inverness police court, in
which the cause of offence was the discovery of a clay image with
pins stuck through it in order to compass the death of a neighbour, a
discovery which resulted in an assault. Many similar cases have been
discovered both in England and Scotland.”[956]

“The demon-priests of Ceylon,” says Gomme,[957] “make use of images of
wax or wood, which represent the person to be injured. They drive nails
into the points which represent the heart, the head, etc., mark the
name of the intended victim on it, and bury it where he is likely to
pass over it.” Plato alludes to the same practice as obtaining amongst
the Greeks of his period.[958]

There are very similar Scotch practices.

It was anciently believed that diseases could be transferred from one
person to another. Says Pliny,[959] “Take the parings of the toe-nails
and finger-nails of a sick person and mix them up with wax, the party
saying that he is seeking a remedy for a tertian, quartan, or quotidian
fever, as the case may be; then stick this wax, before sunrise, upon
the door of another person. Such is the prescription they give for
these diseases.”

Gomme says[960] that St. Tegla’s well, about half-way between Wrexham
and Ruthin, is resorted to for the cure of epilepsy. The patient offers
a cock, or if a woman, a hen. The bird is carried in a basket, first
round the well, and then round the church. The patient enters the
church, creeps under the altar, and remains there till morning. Having
made an offering, he leaves the cock and departs. If the bird dies, it
is supposed that the disease has been transferred to it, and the man or
woman consequently cured.

       *       *       *       *       *

The use of wax figures in enchantments is, as we have shown, very
ancient, and it has lasted up to the present time. Simœtha in
Theocritus says: “As I melt this wax by the help of the goddess, so may
Myndian Delphis be presently wasted by love.”[961] And Horace refers to
it:—

                “Lanea et effigies evat, altera cerea.”
                                              (Lib. i., Sat. 8, l. 30.)

Paracelsus advises the patient afflicted with St. Vitus’ dance to
make an image of himself in wax or resin, and by an effort of mind
to concentrate all his blasphemies and sins in it, “without the
intervention of any other person, to set his whole mind and thoughts
concerning these oaths on the image.” Having done this, he was to
destroy the image by fire.[962]

Pliny says[963] that abrotonum (which was probably southernwood), “if
put beneath the pillow, will act as an aphrodisiac, and that it is
of the very greatest efficacy against all those charms and spells by
which impotence is produced.” As an antaphrodisiac he recommends the
tamarisk, mixed in a drink or in food with the urine of an ox.[964]

Amongst the Tamils of Ceylon there is a ceremony performed with the
skull of a child, with the design of producing the death of the person
against whom the incantation is directed. Cabalistic figures are drawn
upon the skull after it has been duly prepared. The name of the person
to be destroyed by the charm is also written on the skull. Then a paste
is composed with his saliva, some of his hair, and a little earth on
which he has imprinted his footsteps, and this is spread upon a plate,
and taken with the skull to the cemetery of the place, where for forty
nights the evil spirits are invoked to destroy the denounced person.
The natives believe that as the paste dries on the plate, the victim of
the charm will waste and die.[965]

“Both Greeks and savages,” says Mr. A. Lang,[966] “have worshipped
the ghosts of the dead. Both Greeks and savages assign to their gods
the miraculous powers of transformation and magic, which savages also
attribute to their conjurors or shamans. The mantle (if he had a
mantle) of the medicine-man has fallen on the god; but Zeus, or Indra,
was not once a real medicine-man.”

In the Kalevala the hero of the poem wounds himself with an axe. The
wound can only be healed by one who knows the mystic words that hold
the secret of the birth of iron. Iron is the bane of warlike men; when
the wizard curses the iron as a living thing, the hero is healed.[967]


KNOTS.

Justin Martyr says that the Jews used magic ties or knots in their
exorcisms. The Babylonians did the same. When the god Marduk writes to
soothe the last moments of a dying man, Hea says, “Take a woman’s linen
kerchief, bind it round thy right hand; loose it from the left hand,
knot it with seven knots; do so twice.”[968]

The 113th chapter of the Koran was written by Mohammed when he was
suffering from an illness of a rheumatic character, and he believed
that it was caused by some evil person who had bewitched him. The
chapter runs thus:—

“Say, I fly for refuge unto the Lord of the daybreak, that he may
deliver me from the mischief of those things which he hath created; and
from the mischief of the night when it cometh on; and from the mischief
of woman blowing on knots; and from the mischief of the envious,
when he envieth.” Sales’ notes on this chapter explain the singular
expression about knots; he says: “That is, of witches, who used to tie
knots in a cord, and to blow on them, uttering at the same time certain
magical words over them, in order to debilitate the person they had
a mind to injure.” Wizards in the north who pretend to sell mariners
a wind do something similar, and the French _Nouër l’aiguillete_ is
of the same character. This bewitchment by the knot was called by
the Romans Nodus and Obligamentum. Mr. Cockayne says[969] the Saxons
translated it into lyb, _drug_, φάρμακον. It was believed that a man
might lose his power by being put under a knot, and there are cures for
this injury in the _Leechbook_. We find protections “contra maleficium
ligaturæ ut vocant.” Priests are warned not to make any alterations
in the mode of conducting the marriage service by any reason of these
knots.[970]

Of course, as in all other kinds of witchcraft, actual poisons often
had much to do with the magic.


WHITE MAGIC.

As there is White Magic, which according to popular belief is
beneficent, and Black Magic, which is diabolical and hurtful, so
there are white witches and black ones. The white can help, but not
hurt. Cotta says:[971] “The mention of witchcraft doth now occasion
the remembrance in the next place of a sort of practitioners whom our
custome and country doth call wise men and wise women, reputed a kind
of good and harmless witches or wizards, who by good words, by hallowed
herbes, and salves, and other superstitious ceremonies, promise to
allay and calme divels, practices of other witches, and the forces
of many diseases.” The last lingering remains of such wise women may
be found in the poorer quarters of all our great towns as well as in
country places; they sell herbs, and always have a special ointment
or salve which cures everything. This is called “Old Maids’ Salve,”
or some such name, and the sellers may often be known by the pile of
little chip or willow boxes displayed in a shop or front window in
back streets. “White” as they are, they often, it is suspected, give
improper advice to women.

A third species of witch was recognised—a mixture of white and black,
called grey witches, who could help and hurt.[972]

Blaise Pascal, when an infant a year old, was supposed to have been
bewitched by an old woman, who ultimately confessed that she had in
fact so influenced his health.


BLACK MAGIC.

The following “revelation” of the proceedings of sorcerers is from the
_Mysteries of Magic_ by Waite,[973] and was taken by him from the works
of Eliphas Lévi.[974]

“They procure either some of the hair or garments of the person whom
they wish to curse; then they choose an animal which they consider the
symbol of that person by means of the hair or garments; they place this
animal in magnetic rapport with the individual; they give it his name,
then they slay it with one blow of the magic knife, open its breast,
tear out the heart, which they envelop while still palpitating in the
magnetised object, and for three days they hourly pierce this heart
with nails, red-hot pins, or long thorns, pronouncing maledictions
at the same time on the name of the bewitched person. They are then
convinced (and often rightly) that the victim of their infamous
manœuvres experiences as many torments as if he had himself been probed
to the heart with every one of the points. He begins to waste away, and
at the end of a certain time dies of an unknown complaint.” Another
proceeding is to take a large toad, “baptism is administered to it, and
it is given the name and surname of the person whom it is desired to
curse; it is made to swallow a consecrated host whereon the formulæ of
execration have been pronounced; then it is enveloped in the magnetised
objects, bound with the hair of the victim, on which the operator has
previously spat, and the whole is buried either beneath the threshold
of the bewitched person’s door or in a place which he is bound to pass
daily.”[975]

The most important part of the body of a person to be bewitched is a
tooth, but the hair or blood will answer fairly well.


THE EVIL EYE.

The use of red coral for warding off the evil eye is at least as old as
the times of the ancient Romans; they used coral necklaces for their
babies as we do now, but not for ornament so much as for protection
from supernatural danger. In Italy, especially in the parts round
Naples, red coral charms in the shape of a partly closed hand, or
pieces of coral the shape of a tiny carrot, are worn for the purpose of
protecting the wearer from being bewitched by the _mal occhio_.

The last-named charm is evidently phallic.

The belief in witchcraft which still exists not only amongst the
ignorant and degraded, but also amongst cultivated and intelligent
persons, has recently been illustrated by two cases reported in the
press, which it may be well to quote in this connection.


“EXTRAORDINARY SUPERSTITION.

“An inquest was held yesterday at Lufton, a village near Yeovil, on the
body of Mary Jane Saunders, aged twenty-two, who died under peculiar
circumstances. The evidence of the sister of the deceased showed the
latter took to her bed last October. A doctor attended her, and in
November she went into Yeovil hospital. Deceased had not had her reason
for the last six weeks. Her father and mother called in a herbalist,
who remained one day and night. Her mother thought her daughter was
suffering from a ‘bad wish,’ and that it was in consequence of that she
was ill. Her mother had heard that the herbalist had cured two people
at Montacute of ‘bad wishes,’ and that was why they went to him. The
herbalist made some herb tea for deceased to get rid of the ‘bad wish.’
Her father and mother thought the deceased had been ‘overlooked.’
The father told the coroner he was ‘overlooked’ when he was a baby,
and had a spell on him, and some one did him good. The herbalist who
visited deceased said he thoroughly believed one person could put a
spell on another. It was in the Bible, but it was a pity it should be
so. The mother of deceased said they thought some one had cast a ‘bad
wish’ over the deceased, and they tried to get it taken away. They
paid 11_s._ for the herbalist’s medicine to remove the ‘bad wish.’ Dr.
Walters said deceased died of inflammation and softening of the brain,
and a verdict in accordance with that opinion was returned.”[976]

_The Daily Telegraph_ of November 21st, 1892, has the following:—


“TRIAL FOR WITCHCRAFT.

”BERLIN, Nov. 20.—The Court of Eichstaett in Bavaria has just given
judgment in the action for slander arising out of the extraordinary
case of exorcism which occurred some months ago in Bavaria, when a
certain Father Aurelian exorcised a boy named Zilk in his parish, who
was said to be possessed of a devil.

“Father Aurelian declared that the evil spirit entered the boy’s body
through the witchcraft of a Protestant woman named Herz, and the
latter accordingly instituted proceedings against him for slander. The
ceremony of exorcism was performed in presence of a Capuchin friar.
named Wolf, and other persons, and Father Aurelian, in the report which
he drew up of the case, declared that the devil only quitted the boy
after long resistance.

“Friar Wolf, who was one of a long list of witnesses called for the
defence, confirmed the correctness of the defendant’s report as to the
circumstances under which the exorcism had been performed.

“Father Pruner, the Provost of the Cathedral, who was called to give
evidence as to the theological aspects of the matter, testified that,
according to the teaching of the Church, the possibility of demoniac
possession was indisputable; and he gave an account of the doctrine
concerning demons and evil spirits. He declared that Father Aurelian
had recognised the signs of possession as taught by the Schools, and
had acted as he ought to have done under the circumstances. After
pointing out that even the Civil Law recognised the possibility of
covenants between mankind and the devil, he went on to affirm that the
Church could compel the devil to speak the truth. This was to support
the line of defence set up by Father Aurelian that before quitting the
body of the boy the devil himself, speaking through the possessed, had
informed him that Frau Herz had bewitched the boy by means of some
fruit which she had given him.

“Prior Schneider, who was summoned as an expert in demonology, also
explained his views on the spirit world.

“Herr Straub, the Public Prosecutor, said the question before the
Court was not whether Father Aurelian had transgressed the law in
exorcising the boy, but whether he had slandered the plaintiff. This,
he maintained, the defendant had done, and he demanded damages to
the extent of fifty marks, asking this small sum because it was not
contended that Frau Herz had suffered any material loss through the
allegations made against her.

“Frau Herz, in evidence, denied having bewitched the boy, and declared
that the fruit had not been given to Zilk by her, but by a maidservant.
Her own children had also partaken of the fruit without suffering any
ill effects. Ever since the slander spread by Father Aurelian, however,
she had been called ‘A witch’ by the whole neighbourhood, and her
children had been called ‘Witch-children’ by their comrades in school.

“Ultimately the Court gave judgment in accordance with the Public
Prosecutor’s demand, finding that Father Aurelian had uttered the
slander, and imposing upon him a fine of fifty marks with costs, or
five days’ imprisonment.”

How little power any cultivation of the mind, except that which is
purely scientific, has against this degrading superstition!




CHAPTER VI.

MEDICAL SUPERSTITIONS.

 Death and the Grave.—Sorcerer’s Ointment.—Teeth-worms.—Disease
 Transference.—Doctrine of Signatures.


SUPERSTITIONS CONNECTED WITH DEATH AND THE GRAVE.

There is a very common saying amongst ignorant persons, when they
suddenly shudder without reason, that some one is walking over their
grave. In New England it is believed that cramp in the feet can be
cured by walking over a grave. Earth taken at midnight from a newly
made grave is believed in some parts of England to have a curative
effect. Crawling round newly made graves is thought useful in sickness
in Devonshire. Churchyard grass has been used (as what has not?) as an
antidote to hydrophobia. Even in Afghanistan graves have a reputation
for curing diseases.[977]

“In the middle ages the necromancers profaned tombs and compounded
philtres and ointments with the grease and blood of corpses; they mixed
aconite, belladonna, and poisonous fungi therewith; then they boiled
and skimmed these frightful mixtures over fires composed of human
remains and crucifixes stolen from churches; they added the dust of
dried toads and the ashes of consecrated hosts; then they rubbed their
foreheads, hands, and stomachs with the infernal ointment, drew the
satanic pentacle, and evoked the dead beneath gibbets or in desecrated
cemeteries.”[978]

Baptista Porta gives the recipe for the sorceress’ ointment in his
_Natural Magic_. By means of this charm the witches were carried to
their Sabbath. It was composed of children’s fat, of aconite boiled
with poplar leaves, and some other drugs; soot must be mixed with
these, and the bodies of the sorceresses rubbed all over with the
compound as they went to the Sabbath naked. Another recipe from the
works of the same author runs thus:—

_Recipe—Suim, acorum vulgare, pentaphyllon, vespertillionis sanguinem,
solanum somniferum et oleum_, the whole to be well boiled and stirred
to the consistence of an ointment.[979]

Bits of the rope and chips from the gallows after the hanging of a
criminal have long had a reputation in England as cures for headache
and ague. The touch of a dead man’s hand at the place of execution was
formerly considered very efficacious for some complaints.

Dyer says that between Suffolk and Norfolk a favourite remedy for
whooping-cough is to put the head of the suffering child into a hole
made in a meadow for a few minutes. It must be done in the evening,
with only the father and mother to witness it.[980]

A knife that has killed a man is an amulet worn against disease in
China. A piece of skin taken with a black-handled knife from a male
corpse which has been buried nine days is an Irish love charm.[981]

People in North Hampshire sometimes wear a tooth taken from a corpse,
kept in a little bag, and hung round the neck, as a remedy for
toothache. Bones from churchyards have from old times been used as
charms against disease. Coffin water is considered good for warts, and
the water with which a corpse has been washed has been recently given
to a man in Glasgow as a remedy for fits.[982]


TEETH WORMS.

A very curious remedy for toothache is founded on the idea that the
disease is caused by a worm, and that henbane seed roasted will extract
the worm. _The Englishman’s Doctor; or the School of Salerne_, an
English translation of a book published in 1607, has a few lines on
this superstition which run thus:—

    “If in your teeth you hap to be tormented,
      By meane some little wormes therein do breed,
    Which pain (if heed be tane) may be prevented,
      Be keeping cleane your teeth, when as you feede;
    Burne Francomsence (a gum not evil sented),
      Put Henbane unto this, and Onyon seed,
    And with a tunnel to the tooth that’s hollow,
      Convey the smoke thereof, and ease shall follow.”[983]

Every druggist even at the present day sells henbane seed for the same
purpose; it is used by sprinkling it on hot cinders. The heat causes
the seed to sprout, and an appearance similar to a maggot is produced,
which is ignorantly supposed by the purchaser of the drug to have
dropped from the tooth to which the smoke is applied. Very strangely
this belief that toothache is caused by a worm is found all over the
world.[984]

That dental caries is actually caused by an organism (the _Leptothrix
buccalis_), which is found in teeth slime, and the threads of which
penetrate the tissue of the teeth after the enamel has been eaten away
by acids generated by the fermentation of the food, is not of course
known to peasants and ignorant persons; they seem, however, to have in
this instance anticipated a discovery in bacteriology.


DISEASE TRANSFERENCE.

When primitive folk found that diseases could be communicated from one
person to another, that contagious and infectious complaints spread
through a district with terrible rapidity and fatal effects, they
began to argue that it must be possible to transfer diseases to other
creatures than man. And so we find stomach-ache transferred from the
patient to a puppy or a duck.[985] Hooping-cough is transmitted to dogs
by hairs of the patient given between slices of bread-and-butter. Ague
and scarlet-fever are transmitted to the ass on which the sufferer
sits; toothache is passed on to a frog by spitting in its mouth. Even
trees are considered able to relieve patients of ague. Mr. Tylor says:
“In Thuringia it is considered that a string of rowan berries, a rag,
or any small article touched by a sick person, and then hung on a bush
beside some forest path, imparts the malady to any person who may touch
this article in passing, and frees the sick man from the disease.
This gives great probability to Captain Burton’s suggestion, that the
rags, locks of hair, and what not hung on trees near sacred places, by
the superstitious, from Mexico to India, and Ethiopia to Ireland, are
deposited there as actual receptacles for transference of disease.”[986]

Innumerable transference superstitions are met with concerning warts,
and these have doubtless arisen from the very remarkable manner in
which they sometimes disappear. In some cases what are taken to be
warts by those not skilled in skin diseases are merely a papular
eruption of a fugitive kind, which suddenly appears on the back of the
hands and as suddenly vanishes. As real warts, however, often arise
from constitutional causes, they will naturally disappear with improved
general health; and this fact has been the fruitful parent of a host of
superstitions.

Mr. Black gives several of these. He says: “Lancashire wise men tell
us for warts to rub them with a cinder, and this tied up in paper,
and dropped where four roads meet (_i.e._, where the roads cross),
will transfer the warts to whoever opens the parcel. Another mode of
transferring warts is to touch each wart with a pebble, and place the
pebbles in a bag, which should be lost on the way to church; whoever
finds the bag gets the warts.”[987]

A common Warwickshire custom is to rub the warts with a black snail,
stick the snail on a thorn bush, and then, say the folk, as the snail
dies so will the wart disappear.


ANTIDOTES.

Another old medical superstition is that every natural poison carries
within itself its own antidote. Galen, Pliny, and Dioscorides say that
the poison of Spanish fly exists in the body, and the head and wings
contain the antidote. “A hair of the dog that bit you,” is the ancient
way of stating a belief that the hairs of a rabid dog are the true
specific for hydrophobia. The fat of the viper was long regarded as the
remedy for its bite. In black-letter books on Demonology we learn that
“three scruples of the ashes of the witch, when she has been well and
carefully burnt at a stake, is a sure catholicon against all the evil
effects of witchcraft.”[988]


THE DOCTRINE OF SIGNATURES.

By nothing have the annals of medicine been more disgraced than by
the absurd and preposterous “Doctrine of Signatures.” Dr. Paris, in
his _Pharmacologia_, describes it as the belief that “every natural
substance which possesses any medicinal virtues, indicates, by an
obvious and well-marked external character, the disease for which it
is a remedy or the object for which it should be employed.” Thus the
plant which is common in our woods, called “Lungwort” (_Pulmonaria
officinalis_), was anciently considered good for chest complaints,
because its leaves bear a fancied resemblance to the surface of the
lungs. The root of the “mandrake,” from its supposed resemblance to
the human form, was a very ancient medicine for barrenness, and was so
esteemed by Rachel (Genesis xxx. 14).

Pliny, Dioscorides, and other writers attribute peculiar virtues to
the mineral _Lapis Ætites_, or eagle-stone, because the nodule within
the stone rattles when it is shaken. “_Ætites lapis agitatus sonitum
edit, velut ex altero lapide prægnans._” The yellow drug _turmeric_
was held to be a cure for jaundice because it is yellow. Poppies have
their capsules shaped somewhat like a skull, therefore they were
considered appropriate to relieve diseases of the head. _Euphrasia_,
our eye-bright, was a famous application for eye diseases, because its
flowers are somewhat like the pupil of the eye. Nettle-tea by the same
rule is a country remedy for nettle-rash (urticaria). The petals of the
red rose bear the “signature” of the blood, the roots of rhubarb and
the flowers of saffron those of the bile.

A person who believes himself bewitched by execration and the interment
of a toad, should carry about him a living toad.

Southey says,[989] “The signatures [were] the books out of which the
ancients first learned the virtues of herbs—Nature—having stamped
on divers of them legible characters to discover their uses.” Every
healing plant, it was thought, bears in some part of its structure
the type or signature of its peculiar virtue. Oswald Crollius is
supposed to have been “the great discoverer of signatures.” Some of
these strange fancies are as fantastic as those of Swedenborg. Walnuts
were considered to be the perfect signature of the head, the shell
as the skull and the convolutions of the kernel as those of the two
hemispheres of the brain, the outer skin would represent the scalp. So
the signature doctors used the husks for scalp wounds, the inner peel
for disorders of the _dura mater_, and the kernel was “very profitable
for the brain and resists poisons.” The peony when in bud being
something like a man’s head was “very available against the falling
sickness.” Poppy-heads for the same reason were used “with success” in
general diseases of the head. Lilies-of-valley were known by signature
to cure apoplexy; as Coles says, “for as that disease is caused by the
dropping of humours into the principal ventricles of the brain, so the
flowers of this lily hanging on the plants as if they were drops, are
of wonderful use herein.”

Capillary herbs naturally announced themselves as good for diseases of
the hair. The stone crop “hath the signature of the gums,” and so was
used for scurvy. The scales of pine-cones were used for the toothache,
because they resemble the front teeth. Prickly plants like thistles
and holly were used for pleurisy and stitch in the side. Saxifrage was
good for the stone; kidney beans ought to have been useful for kidney
diseases, but seem to have been overlooked except as articles of diet.




CHAPTER VII.

THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

 The Sciences accessory to Medicine.—The great
 Schools of Medical Theory.—Boerhaave and his
 System.—Stahl.—Hoffman.—Cullen.—Brown.—Hospitals.—Bichat and the
 New Era of Anatomy.—Mesmer and Mesmerism.—Surgery.—The Anatomists,
 Physiologists, and Scientists of the Period.—Inoculation and
 Vaccination.


The medical history of the eighteenth century affords but a meagre
result, notwithstanding the brilliant talents and indefatigable
industry of the famous men who devoted their energies to the healing
art. Their great aim was to create systems of medicine which should be
philosophical and complete.

It is not only in what is strictly the art of healing that the
members of the medical profession have ever been amongst the
greatest benefactors of the world, but in what are known as the
accessory sciences many of the most distinguished, enlightened, and
self-sacrificing of the heroes of science have been affiliated to
the profession of medicine. Not only the heroes, but the martyrs
of medicine, crowd the scientific calendar. The seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries were fertile in the efforts to apply the
results of discoveries in the physical sciences to the relief of
human suffering. If these efforts were but partially successful, so
far as medicine—considered apart from surgery—was concerned, it was
not in consequence of less industry in that department, but because
speculation and theorising about the causes of disease monopolised
the attention which, if devoted to observation of facts, would have
been fertile in result. Schools, Systems, and Sects were the chief
product of the medical activity of the eighteenth century. Although not
perhaps of much direct benefit to medicine, indirectly the study of the
sciences accessory to it must have been of considerable benefit as an
educational factor in the training of the intellect of physicians.


THE GREAT SCHOOLS OF MEDICAL THEORY.

Whewell, in his _History of Scientific Ideas_,[990] classifies the
successive biological hypotheses under the heads: (1) THE MYSTICAL
SCHOOL; (2) THE IATRO-CHEMICAL SCHOOL; (3) THE IATRO-MATHEMATICAL
SCHOOL; (4) THE VITAL-FLUID SCHOOL; (5) THE PSYCHICAL SCHOOL.

THE MYSTICAL SCHOOL found its most distinguished representative
in Paracelsus; it derived its doctrine of the _Macrocosm_ and the
_Microcosm_ from the Neoplatonists, and was largely imbued with alchemy
and magic, the doctrines of the Cabala and the fanciful interpretations
of the Bible. Later Paracelsists, Rosicrucians, and other speculators
of the same character, such as Sir Kenelm Digby, brought the Mystical
School of Medicine down to the seventeenth century. Our modern
Theosophists are striving to restore much of the mystical teaching of
Paracelsus and his followers. Again we meet the “astral bodies,” “the
elementary spirits,” the cabalistic interpretations of the Bible, and
the astrological absurdities of a pre-scientific period.

THE IATRO-CHEMICAL SCHOOL really arose from PARACELSUS, who amongst
many absurdities held much important truth. SPRENGEL indicates LIBAVIUS
of Saxony as the person who first cultivated chemistry apart from
theosophy, and he names ANGELUS SALA as his successor. LEMERY, in the
middle of the seventeenth century, began to reform pharmaceutical
chemistry. After PARACELSUS chemistry became an indispensable study to
every physician. Our word _tartar_, the scale which forms on the teeth,
is of Paracelsian origin. He taught that the basis of all diseases was
a thickening of the juices and the formation of earthy matter, which
he called _Tartarus_, because it burns like the fire of hell. After
PARACELSUS we have VAN HELMONT, a true chemical discoverer who sought
in chemistry a theory of disease of which his doctrine of fermentation
in the body holds an important place. Next we have SYLVIUS, with his
doctrine of the opposition of acid and alkali. Digestion he considered
a process of fermentation or effervescence of the acid of the saliva
and pancreatic juice with the alkali of the gall. When either the acid
or the alkali predominated, disease was supposed to follow. The human
body was regarded as a laboratory, the stomach as a sort of test tube.
BOYLE made objections to the doctrines of this school, and HERMAN
CONRING taught that the proper place of chemistry was not in physiology
and pathology, but in pharmacy.

VIRIDET of Geneva endeavoured to prove that the fluids of the body are
either acid or alkaline by experiment. RAIMOND VIEUSSENS declared that
he had discovered an acid in the blood and a ferment in the stomach.
HECQUET opposed him, and said that digestion was not a process of
fermentation, but of trituration. PITCAIRN in England, BOHN and HOFFMAN
in Germany, and BOERHAAVE in Holland opposed the iatro-chemists, and
proved by observation that digestion is not fermentation, and that the
acid and alkali theories of disease supported by SYLVIUS were false.
By the influence and authority of these eminent physicians, the reign
of the chemical school of physiology was overturned. The great fault
of the iatro-chemists was their neglect of the effect of the solids of
the animal body; they assimilated the work of the physician, as Whewell
says, to that of the vintner or the brewer.

THE IATRO-MATHEMATICAL or MECHANICAL SCHOOL attacked, defeated, and
superseded the iatro-chemists. According to this sect, the human body
is a mere machine. Whewell explains that the Mechanical Physiologists
came into existence in consequence of the splendid results obtained
by the schools of Galileo and Newton. It was not so much the exposure
of the weaknesses of the chemical physiology as the effects produced
upon the world by the explanation of so many of the phenomena of the
external universe by the men who had revolutionized astronomy by
their discoveries; it was naturally hoped that that which served to
explain the great world of matter might also elucidate the little
world of man. Whewell divides the school into two parts—the Italian
and the Cartesio-Newtonian sect. The Italian calculated and analysed
the properties of the animal body which are undoubtedly purely
mechanical, the Cartesio-Newtonians went much further than this and
introduced many baseless hypotheses. The Italians occupied themselves
with such calculations as the force of muscles and the hydraulics of
the animal fluid. BORELLI was the first great investigator on these
lines; his work _De Motu Animalium_ (Rome, 1680), treats of the forces
and action of the bones and muscles. JOHN and DANIEL BERNOUELLI and
HENRY PEMBERTON pursued the same line of research. The principles
of hydrostatics were brought to bear on the questions of the blood
pressure and the breath. KEILL endeavoured to estimate the velocity
of the blood. The other school occupied itself with the corpuscular
hypothesis in physiology. The organs were considered as a species of
sieves. Both NEWTON and DESCARTES sought to explain physiology on a
theory of round particles passing through cylindrical tubes, pyramidal
ones through pores of a triangular shape, cubical through square
openings. The diameter and curves of the different vessels formed
subjects of calculations, and BELLINI, DONZELLINI, and GUGLIELMINI
in Italy, PERRAULT and DODART in France, COLE, KEILL, and JURIN in
England, devoted themselves to their study.[991]

The investigation of the size and shape of the particles of the
fluids, and the diameter and form of the invisible vessels, formed
a large part of the physiology of the beginning of the eighteenth
century. CHEYNE thought that fevers of the acute sort arise from
glandular obstruction; and MEAD, the royal physician and friend of
Newton, explained the action of poisons on mechanical principles. The
error of this school, as Whewell explains, lay in considering the
animal frame as a lifeless compound of canals, cords and levers; the
physicians, to its adherents, were merely hydraulic engineers. Some
iatro-mathematicians were, in fact, at the same time teachers both of
engineering and medicine.[992]

THE VITAL-FLUID SCHOOL. The mechanical explanation of the motions of
the animal body may satisfy some observers up to a certain point;
there, however, they must confess their theory fails them. How does
motion _originate_ in the living frame? FRIEDRICH HOFFMAN, of Halle
(b. 1660), assumed a principle, material, yet of a higher kind than
the adherents of the mechanical sect were inclined to recognise. This
principle is exceedingly subtle, and is endued with great energy. It
is the ether diffused through all nature, and which has its seat in
the brain of animals and acts upon the body through the nerves. This
vital fluid operates by laws which at one time were explained on the
principles of a higher mechanics, of which we know little, and at
another on metaphysical grounds, of which we know less. Naturally
the discoveries connected with electricity imported a new element
into these speculations. The vital principle was then held to be a
modification of the electric fluid. JOHN HUNTER discerned it in the
blood. CUVIER believed the vital fluid to be nervous. The objections to
the doctrine of a vital fluid “as one uniform material agent pervading
the organic frame,” are many. If the vital principle be the same in
every part of the body, how does it happen that the secretions are
all so different? How does the blood under the same influence furnish
all the different fluids produced by the glands? How is it the liver
secretes bile, the kidneys their peculiar fluid, the lachrymal gland
the tears? The hypothesis of a vital fluid really explains nothing.

THE PSYCHICAL SCHOOL held the doctrine of an immaterial vital
principle. This is at least as old as ARISTOTLE,[993] who attributes
the cause of motion to the soul. According to that philosopher the soul
has different parts: the _nutritive_ or _vegetative_, the _sensitive_,
and the _rational_. STAHL, the great discoverer in chemistry, opposed
the physiological theories of HOFFMAN, and declared that there is
something in living bodies which cannot be accounted for by mechanics
or chemistry. “All motion,” according to him, “is a spiritual act.”
Nutrition and secretion belong to the operations of the soul; but he
overlooked the fact that these are not peculiar to animals, but are
characteristics of vegetables, which have no soul. CHEYNE and MEAD,
PATERFIELD and WHYTT in England inclined to Stahl’s views. BOISSIER DE
SAUVAGES defended them in France. HOFFMAN and afterwards HALLER opposed
them, the latter inventing the theory of Irritability.

BOERHAAVE (1668-1738), professor of medicine at Leyden, was a man of
varied and profound erudition, conversant with the teaching of the
ancient philosophers and the Greek and Arabian physicians; he was in
addition fully conversant with all the discoveries connected with
the healing art down to his own time. Beyond this he was a natural
philosopher, chemist, botanist, and anatomist, and an indefatigable
experimentalist. In teaching medicine he simplified its study as much
as possible by rejecting the absurd and useless speculations which
encumbered it, and putting in their place the facts which he believed
his own experience and observation had enabled him to ascertain. He
published his system of medicine in two volumes, one entitled the
Instructions or Theory and the other the Aphorisms or Practice of
Medicine. “These short treatises,” says Dr. Thomson,[994] “which gave
to medicine a more systematic form than it had previously exhibited,
are remarkable for brevity, perspicuity, and elegance of style, for
great condensation of ideas, and for the number of important facts
which they contain relative to the healthy and diseased states of the
human economy.” The genius of Boerhaave raised the medical school
of Leyden to the highest distinction. Princes in all countries sent
him pupils; Peter the Great took lessons in medicine from him, and
so great was his reputation that when a Chinese mandarin directed a
letter to him, “To the illustrious Boerhaave, physician in Europe,”
it was duly delivered. He held the study of Mind to form an important
part of physiology. He taught that the change produced upon the
extremity of the sentient nerve must be transmitted by the nerve to
the brain before sensation can be produced. He considered the nerves
to be hollow undulatory canals. He also held that each of the senses
has its distinct seat in the common sensory or brain. His lectures
on the mental faculties are full of varied and curious information.
Considering the human body as a combination of various machines
arranged in one harmonious whole, he endeavoured to explain its
phenomena in health and disease on the principles of natural philosophy
and chemistry to the almost entire exclusion of vital forces, which,
however, he did not reject. He denied that all medical phenomena
are to be explained upon mechanical principles. He lamented that
“physiological subjects are usually handled either by mathematicians
unskilful in anatomy, or by anatomists who are not versed in
mathematics.” Yet his system of physiology embraced but a poor
conception of the mystery of life. He says, “Let anatomy faithfully
describe the parts and structure of the body; let the mechanician apply
his particular science to the solids; let hydrostatics explain the
laws of fluids in general, and hydraulics their actions, as they move
through given canals; and lastly, let the chemist add to all these
whatever his art, when fairly and carefully applied, has been able to
discover; and then, if I am not mistaken, we shall have a complete
account of medical physiology.”

It is to BOERHAAVE that we owe the peculiar chemical idea of affinity,
that mutual virtue by which one chemical substance loves, unites with,
and holds the other (_amat_, _unit_, _retinet_). He called it love.
“We are here to imagine, not mechanical action, not violent impulse,
not antipathy, but love, at least if love be the desire of uniting.”
It is to BOERHAAVE, therefore, we are indebted for a view of chemical
affinity which enables us to comprehend all chemical changes.[995]

The idea of affinity as marriage naturally leads to analysis as
divorce. Thus affinity, imperfectly understood before the time of
Boerhaave, made analysis possible. One of the first to express this
conviction was DR. MAYOW, who published his Medico-Physical Tracts
in 1674. He shows how an acid and an alkali lose their properties by
combination, a new substance being formed not at all resembling either
of the ingredients. He explains that, “although these salts thus mixed
appear to be destroyed, it is still possible for them to be separated
from each other, with their power still entire.”[996]

GEORGE ERNEST STAHL (1660-1734), chemist, was professor of medicine at
Halle (1694) and physician to the King of Prussia (1716). He opposed
materialism, and substituted “animism,” explaining the symptoms of
disease as efforts of the soul to get rid of morbid influences.
Stahl’s “anima” corresponds to Sydenham’s “nature” in a measure, and
has some relationship to the Archeus of Paracelsus and Van Helmont.
STAHL was the author of the “phlogiston” theory in chemistry, which
in its time has had important influence on medicine. Phlogiston was a
substance which he supposed to exist in all combustible matters, and
the escape of this principle from any compound was held to account for
the phenomenon of fire. According to STAHL, diseases arise from the
direct action of noxious powers upon the body; and from the reaction
of the system itself endeavouring to oppose and counteract the effects
of the noxious powers, and so preserve and repair itself.[997] He did
not consider diseases, therefore, pernicious in themselves, though he
admitted that they might become so from mistakes made by the soul in
the choice, or proportion of the motions excited to remove them, or
the time when these efforts are made. Death, according to this theory,
is due to the indolence of the soul, leading it to desist from its
vital motions, and refusing to continue longer the struggle against the
derangements of the body.[998] Here we have the “expectant treatment”
so much in vogue with many medical men. “Trusting to the constant
attention and wisdom of nature,” they administered inert medicines
as placebos, while they left to nature the cure of the disease. But
they neglected the use of invaluable remedies such as opium and
Peruvian bark, for which error it must be admitted they atoned by
discountenancing bleeding, vomiting, etc.[999] Stahl’s remedies were
chiefly of the class known as “Antiphlogistic,” or antefebrile.

DE SAUVAGES (1706-1767), the French physicist, was a disciple of Stahl,
and adopted his theory of soul as the cause of the mechanical action of
the body. He invented a system of classifying diseases under the title
of _Nosologia Methodica_, founded on the principles of natural history.

FRIEDRICH HOFFMAN (1660-1742) was a fellow-student with Stahl at Jena.
He was the author of a system of medicine in some respects original.
He distinguished in the human economy three principal agents: Nature,
or the Organic Body; the Sentient Soul; and the Rational Soul;
corresponding to the classification of the Scripture of body, soul,
and spirit—a classification which originated doubtless in Indian
philosophy. Hoffman did not admit with Stahl that the organic functions
of the human body depend on the agency of an intelligent soul or any
immaterial agent whatsoever, but are merely mechanical and chemical
properties of the elements which compose our bodies. The functions most
essential to life he considered to be the circulatory, secretory, and
excretory motions, and these seemed to him to depend upon the dilating
and contracting powers of the muscular fibres of the vascular system.
These powers then he held to be the cause of the organic functions
which depend on the animal spirits, an ethereal fluid contained in the
nerves and the blood.[1000]

Hoffman first made known the virtues of the Seidlitz waters; he also
invented a nostrum which was popular for a long time, and called
“Hoffman’s Anodyne Liquor.”


PHYSICIANS.

ARCHIBALD PITCAIRN, M.D. (1652-1713), was a famous physician of
Edinburgh. In 1692 he occupied a professor’s chair at Leyden with
great distinction. Among his pupils were MEAD and BOERHAAVE, who
both attributed much of their skill to his tuition. On his return to
Edinburgh he greatly interested himself in improving the teaching of
anatomy. He begged the Town Council to permit the dissection of the
bodies of paupers; and though the chief surgeons of the place did all
they could to oppose his efforts, they were successful, and Pitcairn
had the credit of laying the foundation of the great Edinburgh school
of medicine. He insisted on the strict adherence to Bacon’s method
of attending to facts of experience and observation. “Nothing,” he
said, “more hinders physic from being improved than the curiosity
of searching into the natural causes of the effects of medicines.
The business of men is to know the virtues of medicines; but to
inquire whence they have that power is a superfluous amusement, since
nature lies concealed. A physician ought therefore to apply himself
to discover by experience the effects of medicines and diseases,
and reduce his observations into maxims, and not needlessly fatigue
himself by inquiring into their causes, which are neither possible nor
necessary to be known. If all physicians would act thus, we should not
see physic divided into so many sects.” In his DISSERTATIONS (1701) he
discusses the application of geometry to physic, the circulation of the
blood, the cure of fevers by purgation, and the effects of acids and
alkalis in medicine. A learned and skilful physician, an accomplished
mathematician, and a thorough classical scholar, he was not discreet in
his political utterances. His library was purchased by Peter the Great
of Russia.

JOHN RADCLIFFE, M.D. (1650-1714), was famous for “his magnificent
regard for the advancement of learning and science.” The Radcliffe
infirmary and observatory at Oxford were built from funds bequeathed by
him.

SIR HANS SLOANE, M.D. (1660-1753), was a physician whose noble museum
and library were the foundation of the British Museum.

SIR RICHARD BLACKMORE, M.D. (1650-1729), wrote on inoculation for
small-pox, on consumption, gout, rheumatism, scrofula, diabetes,
jaundice, etc.

WALTER NEEDHAM, M.D. (died 1691), made important investigations in the
anatomy of the fœtus, and the changes of the pregnant uterus.

CLOPTON HAVERS, M.D. (died 1702), was the author of a standard work
on the bones, certain canals of which were called after him Haversian
canals.

JAMES DOUGLAS, M.D. (1675-1742), was an excellent anatomist, who was
one of the first to demonstrate from anatomy that the high operation
for stone might be safely performed. He was a skilful accoucheur, an
accomplished botanist, and a man of letters. Pope mentions him in the
_Dunciad_, and in a note describes him as a physician of great learning
and no less taste. He wrote several works, the most famous of which is
_Myographiæ Comparatæ Specimen; or a comparative description of all the
muscles in a man and in a quadruped; added is an account of the muscles
peculiar to a woman_. London, 1707.

WILLIAM CULLEN, M.D. (1710-1790), was the first professor in Great
Britain to deliver his lectures in the English language.[1001] He was
appointed lecturer on chemistry at Glasgow University in 1746, and
in 1751 was chosen regius professor of medicine. In 1756 he became
professor of chemistry in the University of Edinburgh; in 1760 he was
made lecturer on materia medica. Dr. Cullen earned great distinction
as a lecturer on medicine; he opposed the teaching of Boerhaave and
the principles of the humoral pathology, founding his own teaching on
that of Hoffman. His system was to a great extent based on the new
physiological doctrine of irritability as taught by Haller.

He attached great importance to nervous action in the induction of
disease, considering even gout as a neurosis.

His _First Lines of the Practice of Physic_ was long exceedingly
popular, but his fame as a medical writer rests on his _Nosology_, or
_Classification of Diseases_. In all his labours Dr. Cullen aimed at
the practical rather than the theoretical. “My business is not,” he
remarks,[1002] “so much to explain how this and that happens, as to
examine what is truly matter of fact.” “My anxiety is not so much to
find out how it happens as to find out _what_ happens.” Cullen invented
no ingenious hypothesis, rather he new-modelled the whole practice
of medicine; “he defined and arranged diseases with an unrivalled
accuracy, and reduced their treatment to a simplicity formerly
unknown.”[1003]

JAMES GREGORY, M.D. (1758-1822), exercised the greatest influence on
the progress of medicine in England. As the successor of Cullen, and as
the author of the famous _Conspectus Medicinæ Theoreticæ_, the name of
Gregory, borne by many ornaments of British science, became still more
distinguished.

SIR GILBERT BLANE, M.D. (born 1747), rendered important medical
services to the State by his researches on the diseases incident to
seamen. He banished scurvy from the fleet by his arrangements for
provisioning ships on foreign stations, particularly by making lemon
juice a regular ingredient of diet.

SIR WILLIAM WATSON, M.D. (1715-1787), was a devoted botanist and
student of electricity. His electrical researches raised him to a
position of European fame. He was the first in England who succeeded in
igniting spirit of wine by electricity; he was the first to note the
different colour of the spark, as drawn from different bodies; and his
researches in the power and accumulation of electricity, the nature of
its conductors, etc., qualified him to take part in the experiments
carried out in 1747 and 1748, by which the “electric current was
extended to four miles in order to prove the velocity of its
transmission.”[1004] The doctor’s house in Aldersgate Street was long
the resort of the most distinguished men of science in Europe. He was
not less the benign and generous friend to the poor and suffering, than
the ardent investigator of the secrets of Nature. His work _Experiments
and Observations on Electricity_ is quite a remarkable production
considering the age in which it was published (1768).

ROBERT WILLAN, M.D. (1757-1812), was the founder of the science of
skin diseases in England. His attention was directed in 1784 to the
elementary forms of eruption, and on this basis he erected his magnum
opus, _The Description and Treatment of Cutaneous Diseases_ (1798).

JOHN BROWN (1735-1788), was a systematizer of medicine, whose
popularity was even continental. He endeavoured to explain the
processes of life and disease and the principles of cure upon one
simple idea, the property of “excitability.” The “exciting powers” are
the external forces, and the functions of the body are stimulants, so
that “the whole phenomena of life, health as well as disease, consist
in stimulus and nothing else.” Diseases he divided as _sthenic_,
attended with preternatural excitement, and _asthenic_, characterized
by debility.

Ninety-seven per cent. of all diseases, he declared, require a
“stimulating treatment.” One good result of this theory was that it
introduced a milder treatment of disease than the bleeding and purging
doctors of his time advocated. The theory was called the Brunonian, and
received greater attention in Italy than in England.

JOHN MORGAN, M.D. (1736-1789), was born in Philadelphia. He wrote an
essay on his graduation at Edinburgh (1763), wherein “he maintained
that pus is a secretion from the vessels, and in this view anticipated
John Hunter.”[1005]

ROBERT JAMES, M.D. (1703-1776), was the inventor of the celebrated
fever-powder which bears his name.

FRANCIS DE VALINGEN, M.D. (1725-1805), was a Swiss who practised in
London. He was the first to suggest the employment of chloride of
arsenic in practice. His preparation was admitted into the London
Pharmacopœia.

ERASMUS DARWIN (1701-1802), a physician of Lichfield, was a true
poet of science. His fame rests on the _Botanic Garden_, in which he
describes the _Loves of the Plants_ according to the Linnæan system.
His most important scientific work is his _Zoonomia_, a pathological
work, and a treatise on generation, in which he anticipated the views
of Lamarck. He asks: “Would it be too bold to imagine that in the great
length of time since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of ages
before the commencement of the history of mankind, would it be too bold
to imagine that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living
filament, which the Great First Cause endued with animality, with the
power of acquiring new parts, attended with new propensities, directed
by irritations, sensations, volitions, and associations, and thus
possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent
activity, and of delivering down these improvements by generation to
its posterity, world without end!” He believed that plants possess
sensation and volition.

EDWARD SPRY, M.D. (lived in 1756). At the fire of Eddystone lighthouse
an old man was injured by the fall of a quantity of molten lead upon
him. Dying of his injuries in twelve days, he was examined by Dr.
Spry, who stated that he found in the stomach a lump of lead three and
three-quarter inches long by one and a half in breadth. As no surgeon
would believe this story, Dr. Spry performed a number of experiments
upon animals by pouring molten lead down their throats, with the result
that at the Royal Society, Dr. Huxham, in his letter to Sir William
Watson, “testified to his own belief in Mr. Spry’s veracity.”[1006]

JOHN COAKLEY LETTSOM, M.D. (1744-1815), was a learned and amiable
philanthropist, who published several important medical and scientific
works. His _Reflections on the Treatment and Cure of Fevers_ and
_The Natural History of the Tea Tree_ appeared in 1772. He wrote the
following lines:—

    “When patients sick to me apply,
    I physics, bleeds, and sweats ’em.
    Sometimes they live, sometimes they die:
    What’s that to me? I. Lettsom.”

He gave away immense sums in charity, he was not so unfeeling as his
verse would make him appear.

WILLIAM STARK (1742-1770) was the earliest writer who distinguished
between tuberculosis and scrofula.

JEAN ASTRUC (1684-1766), professor at Montpellier, the oldest of the
celebrated French obstetricians, was the author of a work on the
diseases of women from the pathological point of view.

JOHANN E. WICHMANN (1740-1802), a scientific physician of Hanover, in
1786 explained the cause of itch as due to the itch-mite passing from
one individual to another. He experimented upon himself. BONOMO had,
however, discovered the insect in the itch pustules in 1687.

Wichmann suggested the contagiousness of consumption, whooping cough,
diarrhœa, and several other complaints.

J. P. FRANK (1745-1821) was “the founder of medical police as a
distinct department of science.”[1007]


HOSPITALS.

The condition of the hospitals for the sick in the eighteenth century
was scandalous almost beyond belief. Thus, in the Hôtel Dieu of Paris,
the mortality at one time was 220 per 1,000; a state of affairs which,
however, we surpassed in the present century, when in the British
hospitals at Scutari the mortality reached between 400 and 500 per
1,000. In both cases this was due to overcrowding. At the Hôtel Dieu
two or three small-pox cases, or several surgical cases, or sometimes
even four lying-in women would be packed into one bed. A large
proportion of the beds were purposely made for four patients, and six
were frequently crowded in.

JOHN HOWARD (1726-1790), the philanthropist, by his splendid and
devoted labours in connection with the reform of prisons, hospitals,
and lazarettos, drew attention to the means of preventing the
communication of the plague and other infectious fevers. In the words
of Burke “his philanthropic spirit led him to dive into the depths
of dungeons; to plunge into the infection of hospitals; to survey
the mansions of sorrow and pain; to take the gauge and dimensions of
misery, depression, and contempt; to remember the forgotten; to attend
to the neglected; to visit the forsaken, and to compare and collate the
distresses of all men in all countries.” Not the least of his services
were those he rendered to the cause of sanitary science and public
health.

THÉOPHILE DE BORDEU (1722-1776) was a professor of anatomy and
midwifery at Montpellier. By his great work, _Recherches sur le Pouls_,
he so enraged his professional brethren (who, like the Jews, always
either maim or kill the prophets sent unto them), that he was attacked
in his personal character with disgraceful malignity for several years.
He rendered very great services to the progress of medical science. His
physiology was far in advance of his age, and many men have found in
his researches on the functions of the glands a mine of wealth for the
establishment of their own reputation.

M. F. X. DE BICHAT (1771-1802) was a celebrated French anatomist and
physiologist, whose great work, _Anatomie Générale_, was the foundation
of the reform of French medicine at the intellectual awakening after
the great revolution. Pathology, the science of disease, would have
been impossible without such researches as those of Bichat. He first
took a “commanding view,” not merely of the organs of the body, but of
the tissues of which they are built up. He resolved the complex into
its elements, and investigated the structure of each. He completed the
overthrow of the iatro-mathematical school, regarding the properties of
the _living_ tissues as _vital_ actions. He classified the functions
as _organic_ and _animal_, and greatly aided in systematising the
phenomena of life.


MESMERISM.

FREDERICK ANTON MESMER (1733-1815) studied medicine at Vienna. He
embraced astrology, and believed in the influence of the stars on
living beings. He came to think that cures might be effected by
stroking with magnets; afterwards he discarded the magnets, and
convinced himself that he could influence others by stroking them
with his hands alone. In 1778 Paris was greatly excited over the
miraculous cures of mesmerism. The medical faculty denounced him as a
charlatan, though a Government Commission in its report admitted many
of the facts, while tracing them to physiological causes. The Marquis
de Puysegur revolutionised the art of mesmerism by producing all the
phenomena without the mummeries and violent means resorted to by
Mesmer. Dr. John Elliotson in England in 1830 successfully practised
the art.

In 1845 BARON VON REICHENBACH declared he had discovered a new force
which he called _odyl_, and in 1850 his _Researches on Magnetism_ were
translated into English by Dr. Gregory, professor of chemistry in the
University of Edinburgh.

G. VAN SWIETEN (1700-1772) was a pupil of Boerhaave, and famous in
the history of medicine as the founder of the Old Vienna School. He
brought about the clinical teaching for which that school has since
been so famous. Following the instructions of Paracelsus, he introduced
into his practice the use of mercuric perchloride internally in the
treatment of syphilis. His commentaries on Boerhaave were considered to
be more valuable than the text itself.

DE HAEN (1704-1776), of the Hague, studied under Boerhaave, and having
been recommended by Van Swieten, was invited to Vienna as president
of the clinical school in the hospital of that city. Observation, and
the simplest treatment in disease, especially in fevers, made up the
chief part of his medical system. Purgatives and emetics and powerful
medicines he would use only on the most urgent necessity. Hygiene, both
for the patient and the state, he considered of the highest importance
in medical education. Clinical thermometry received great attention
from De Haen, who demonstrated that in what is considered by the
patient the cold stage of fevers there is really a notable increase in
the temperature.

JAMES YONGE (1646-1721), physician and F.R.S., wrote an important
treatise on the use of turpentine as a means of arresting hæmorrhage,
entitled _Currus Triumphalis de Terebintho_. He described the flap
operation in amputations, and was acquainted with the principle of the
tourniquet for the arrest of bleeding during operations.

JOHN ADDENBROOKE, M.D., died 1719, leaving by his will four thousand
pounds to found a hospital at Cambridge, which now bears his name.

JAMES DRAKE, M.D. (1667-1707), wrote a work, once deservedly popular,
entitled _Anthropologia Nova; or, a New System of Anatomy_.

JOHN ARBUTHNOT, M.D. (1658-1735), physician to Queen Anne, was a man of
extensive learning and of great scientific abilities, characterized by
Thackeray as “one of the wisest, wittiest, most accomplished, gentlest
of mankind.”

DANIEL TURNER, M.D. (1667-1741), achieved a certain fame as the
inventor of an excellent ointment, still known as “Turner’s Cerate,”
composed of oil, wax, and calamine.

RICHARD MEAD, M.D. (1673-1754), was the author of the _Mechanical
Account of Poisons_, a work which at once established his reputation.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1703. On the accession
of George II. he was appointed physician-in-ordinary to the King.
He was the friend of Radcliffe, and like him a generous promoter of
science and learning and of unbounded charity to those in misery. It
was Mead who persuaded Guy to bequeath his fortune to found the noble
hospital which bears his name. Mead was a political physician, and it
is said by Miss Strickland that his prompt boldness occasioned the
peaceable proclamation of George I. Mead’s work on the diseases of the
Bible, entitled _Medica Sacra_, is a curious and interesting treatise.
Excellent physician as he was, he recommended pepper and lichen as a
specific against the bite of a mad dog.

JOHN FREIND, M.D. (1675-1728), a learned and accomplished physician,
is famous as the author of an elaborate work, _The History of Physick
from the Time of Galen to the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century_. He
laid the plan of this important work whilst a prisoner in the Tower, to
which he was committed on suspicion of participation in the so-called
“Bishop’s plot.” He was liberated after about three months’ confinement
by the firmness of Dr. Mead, who refused to prescribe for Sir Robert
Walpole till he consented to admit him to bail.[1008] During his
imprisonment Freind wrote a Latin letter _On certain Kinds of Small
Pox_.

How near the physicians of Mead’s time came towards the discovery of
the germ theory of infectious disorders may be seen from his account
of the leprosy.[1009] In this treatise he says it has been found by
experiments that in the plague and other malignant eruptive fevers the
infection once received into articles of clothing remains in them for
a long time, and thence passes into human bodies, and “like seeds sown
produces the disease peculiar to them.” With reference to the retention
of the infection by dry walls, he says, “I thought it probable that
they may, by a kind of fermentation, produce these hollow, greenish, or
reddish strokes,” etc.


SURGEONS.

DOMINIQUE ANEL (1679-1730) was the famous French surgeon who invented
the operation for aneurism, which Hunter afterwards modified and called
by his own name.

He successfully treated lachrymal fistula, and invented several
surgical instruments which are named after him.

J. L. PETIT (1674-1750) in 1718 invented the screw tourniquet for
compressing bleeding arteries. He was one of the most famous surgeons
in the brightest period of the art in France, and was besides an
excellent ophthalmologist.

LE CAT (1700-1768) was the famous lithotomist, and opponent of the
doctrines of Haller.

LE DRAN (1685-1770) performed the first disarticulation of the thigh.

MORAND (1697-1773) performed disarticulation of the upper arm.

PIERRE JOSEPH DESAULT (1744-1795) was a great French anatomist and
surgeon, who instituted a clinical school of surgery at the Hôtel Dieu
in Paris. He frequently had an audience of six hundred.

He introduced many improvements in surgical practice and in the
construction of surgical instruments.

G. DE LA FAYE (d. 1781), a great surgeon and oculist, also
disarticulated the shoulder joint.

A. LOUIS (1723-1792) was a distinguished military surgeon.

R. B. SABATIER (1723-1811) was a distinguished surgeon, anatomist,
and ophthalmologist, and a man of great and all-round information on
medical subjects in general.

P. F. PERCY (1754-1825) was a military surgeon who introduced
cold-water dressings into French surgery.

ANTONIO SCARPA (1748-1832), the famous Italian anatomist, held the
chair of anatomy at Modena, was distinguished in every branch of
anatomical research, and investigated the minute anatomy of the nerves
and bones. He decided the long-debated question whether the heart is
supplied with nerves in the affirmative. He wrote on diseases of the
eye, on aneurism, and on hernia. He was an elegant scholar, “equally at
home in the criticism of the fine arts and in the details of scientific
agriculture.”

Amongst the principal Italian surgeons of the century were BERTRANDI
(1723-1797), TROJA (1747-1827), and PALLETTA (1747-1823).

Of the Germans the great names are, SCHMUCKER (1712-1786), RICHTER
(1742-1812), and SIEBOLD (1736-1807), who first taught surgery
clinically in Germany.

CALLISEN (1740-1824), the great Danish surgeon, and ANEL (1741-1801),
the founder of the Swedish School of Surgery, are two famous names
which must be remembered in the surgical history of the period.

WILLIAM CHESELDEN (1688-1752) was famous as a lithotomist and oculist.
His dexterity in the performance of lithotomy caused marvellous legends
to be told of him, it was even said that he had operated in fifty-four
seconds. He published his _Anatomy of the Human Body_ in 1713.

SAMUEL SHARP (1700-1778) excelled in nearly every branch of surgery,
and was a skilful operator, who by his efforts to stimulate English
surgeons to emulate the French did much to advance British surgery.

BENJAMIN GOOCH of Norwich, HEY of Leeds, and PARK of Liverpool, were
also famous in this period.

PERCIVAL POTT (1713-1788) was a surgeon to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital,
London, whose life formed a sort of epoch in the history of surgery in
England. Samuel Cooper says of him[1010] that he was in his time the
best practical surgeon, the best lecturer, the best writer on surgery,
the best operator of which the metropolis could boast.

JOHN HUNTER (1728-1793) was a physiologist and surgeon combined,
unrivalled in the annals of medicine. He raised surgery, which before
his time was little more than a mechanical art, to the rank of a
scientific profession. As a pathologist and comparative anatomist, he
rendered the greatest services to medicine and surgery. He dissected
500 different species of animals. One of the most brilliant surgical
discoveries of the century was Hunter’s operation for the cure of
popliteal aneurism, by tying the femoral artery above the tumour and
without interfering with it. He improved the treatment of rupture of
the tendo achillis, and invented a method of curing lachrymal fistula,
and of curing hydrocele radically by injection.

He was the first to describe phlebitis (inflammation of the veins), and
he made the discovery that the white blood corpuscles are antecedent
to the red. He investigated the subject of inflammation, the results
of which he published in his _Treatise on the Blood, Inflammation
and Gun-shot Wounds_. Other works of Hunter’s are his _Treatise on
the Natural History of the Human Teeth_, _A Treatise on the Venereal
Disease_, and _Observations on Certain Points of the Animal Economy_.
“His greatest monument is the splendid museum which he formed by his
sole efforts, which he made too when labouring under every disadvantage
of deficient education and limited means.” His brother-in-law, Sir
Everard Home, prepared the catalogue of the museum and then burned
Hunter’s manuscripts, probably that he might conceal the plagiarisms of
which he had been guilty in writing his book on Comparative Anatomy.
The Government purchased Hunter’s museum from his widow for £15,000,
upon condition that twenty-four lectures should be delivered every year
to members of the college, and that the museum should be open to the
public.

CHARLES WHITE, a Manchester surgeon (_circ._ 1768), was the first
to introduce what is known as conservative surgery. He first
resected[1011] the humerus, and taught the reduction of shoulder
dislocations with the heel in the arm-pit.

The German surgeons in the seventeenth century held simply the position
of barbers; they began life by cutting hair, shaving, cupping and
bleeding, and then rose to be dressers of wounds and ulcers, and to
treat fractures and dislocations.[1012] In 1713, Berlin acquired its
first anatomical theatre for the instruction of military doctors and
“medico-surgeons.” Dresden and Hanover began to improve the education
of clever barbers about the middle of the eighteenth century. The
Military Medical School of Vienna was opened in 1781. Barbers and
bathmen in the eighteenth century were trained into district medical
officers and surgeons by a course of instruction lasting from two
to three years. In Holland students were privileged to assist in
operations at the hospitals. The first surgical clinic in Germany was
established at Würzburg, in 1769. The Vienna surgical clinic arose in
1774. The greatest teacher of surgery in Germany, A. G. Richter, gave
clinical instruction at Göttingen, in 1781.[1013]

G. M. THILENIUS in 1784 performed the first division of the _tendo
achillis_ for the cure of club-foot.

JUSTUS ARNEMAN (1763-1807) was a surgical professor at Göttingen, who
wrote a system of surgery and advanced the study of diseases of the ear.

CAMPER (1722-1789), a Dutch surgeon of a mechanical turn of mind, made
improvements in trusses. LEGUIN, a Frenchman, was the first to employ
steel springs in trusses (1663). TIPHARIE in 1761 introduced the double
truss.[1014]


OBSTETRICIANS.

JOHANN PALFYN (1649-1730), a celebrated obstetric physician, in 1721
invented, or rather re-introduced, a species of forceps in difficult
labour.

HUGH CHAMBERLEN, M.D. (1664-1728), was the most famous man-midwife
of his day. His name is for ever associated with the invention of
the obstetric forceps—a noble instrument, which has saved more lives
than any mechanical invention ever associated with the healing art. A
monument was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey, with a long
Latin epitaph by Bishop Atterbury.

WILLIAM SMELLIE (1680-1763), a distinguished English obstetric
physician, improved the midwifery forceps and suggested and performed
various operations in obstetric practice.

       *       *       *       *       *

WILLIAM BROMFIELD (1712-1792) founded the Lock Hospital, London. He
invented a tenaculum (a fine sharp hook by which the mouths of bleeding
arteries are drawn out). He was a celebrated operator, and wrote a work
on surgery.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Medical College of Philadelphia was the first institution
established in North America to give medical instruction. It was
organized in May, 1765, by Drs. Shippen and Morgan. The University
of Pennsylvania developed its medical department from this humble
beginning.


ANATOMISTS, PHYSIOLOGISTS, BOTANISTS, ETC.

ALEXANDER MONRO (1697-1767) was a very eminent surgeon and anatomist of
Edinburgh, whose Medical School owes more to him probably than to any
other individual. He wrote on the _Anatomy of the Bones_, and an _Essay
on Comparative Anatomy_.

FRANK NICHOLLS, M.D. (1699-1778), was a famous anatomist and
physiologist at Oxford. “He was the inventor of corroded anatomical
preparations, and one of the first to study and teach the minute
anatomy of tissues, in other words, general, as distinguished from
regional and descriptive anatomy.”[1015] He was one of the first to
describe correctly the mode of the production of aneurism, and he
distinctly recognised the existence and function of the vaso-motor
nerves.[1016]

BROWNE LANGRISH, M.D., was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in
1734. He was the author of several medical treatises, one of which
was entitled _Physical Experiments upon Brutes to discover a Method
of dissolving Stone in the Bladder by Injections; to which is added a
course of Experiments with the Lauro-Cerasus; on Fumes of Sulphur_,
etc. 8vo. Lond., 1746. His researches on the action of cherry
laurel water are said to have suggested the use of prussic acid in
medicine.[1017]

JOHN FOTHERGILL, M.D. (1712-1780), was a distinguished botanist, who
collected a great number of rare plants from all parts of the world.

WILLIAM CRUIKSHANK (1745-1800) was an anatomist who discovered urea.

STEPHEN HALES (1677-1761), an experimental physiologist and
pathologist, produced dropsy by injecting water into the veins of
animals, and investigated by experiments on animals the relative
movements of the blood.

ANTONIO VALSALVA (1666-1723), a great Italian anatomist, held the
professor’s chair at Bologna and wrote a valuable treatise upon the ear
and its anatomy.

GIOVANNI SANTORINI (1681-1737) was a Venetian anatomist whose
investigations in the anatomy of the larynx, nose, face, etc., have
immortalised his name in connection with several structures of those
parts.

GIOVANNI B. MORGAGNI (1682-1772) was the great founder of pathological
anatomy. He was a pupil of Valsalva. His famous book on pathological
anatomy was not published until he was in his 79th year. He was the
author of the maxim that “observations should be weighed, not counted.”
The researches in morbid anatomy carried out by Morgagni formed an
epoch in the history of modern medicine, which may indeed be said to
rest on the two methods of Sydenham and Morgagni. The work of the
Italian anatomist was complementary to that of the English Hippocrates,
who neglected anatomy. Morgagni and the “Encyclopædic Haller,” whom we
are next to consider, were two of the brightest medical lights of the
century.

ALBERT VON HALLER (1708-1777), surnamed “the Great,” was a Swiss
physician of Berne, who was not only a distinguished scientist, but a
man of letters and a famous poet. He studied comparative anatomy at
Tübingen; in 1725 he removed to Leyden, which at that time was the
first medical school in Europe. He visited England in 1727, and made
the acquaintance of Sir Hans Sloane, Cheselden, Dr. James Douglas, and
other eminent persons. Leaving London, he went to Paris, but having
been detected by the police in dissecting in his lodgings, he had to
leave France, and he went to Basle to continue his investigations
in anatomy; there he studied mathematics under John Bernoulli, and,
having imbibed a taste for botany, studied the flora of Switzerland,
on which he afterwards published a work. In 1729 he returned to Berne
and lectured on anatomy; invited in 1726 to accept the professorship
of anatomy, surgery, and botany in the newly founded University of
Göttingen, he removed to that city, and by his influence a botanical
garden, an anatomical theatre, a school of surgery and midwifery were
established there. In 1747 he published his most valuable work, the
_Primæ Lineæ Physiologiæ_ which was used as a text-book in medical
schools.

VAN SWIETEN (1700-1772), the pupil of Boerhaave, established the first
clinical institution in Germany. He was with Sanchez the first to use
corrosive sublimate in medicine. To his exertions it was due that the
teaching of medicine was greatly improved in Austria.

J. F. MECKEL (1724-1774) was an anatomist whose researches on the
nerves, blood-vessels, glands, etc., have greatly contributed to our
knowledge of their physiological functions.

J. C. PEYER (1653-1712) and J. C. BRUNER (1653-1727) discovered the
glands in the intestines which are known to this day by their names.

A. PACCHIONI (1665-1726) described the glands we call in his honour
“Pacchionian.” W. COWPER (1666-1709) discovered those which bear his
name. M. NABOTH (1675-1721) described the structures we call ovula
Nabothi. H. MEIBOM (1638-1700) discovered the glands of the eyelids
named after him.

WALTER CHARLTON, M.D. (1619-1707), anatomist, a voluminous writer, was
to some extent a follower of Van Helmont.

THOMAS FULLER, M.D. (died 1734), published several pharmacopœias and an
account of eruptive fevers, with several other works.

NEHEMIAH GREW, M.D. (born about 1641), wrote _The Anatomy of Plants,
with an Idea of a Philosophical History of Plants_, which Sprengel
calls _opus absolutum et immortale_. Hallam says,[1018] “no man,
perhaps, who created a science has carried it further than Grew; few
discoveries of great importance have been made in the mere anatomy of
plants since his time.” His great discovery was the sexual system of
plants; “that the sexual system is universal in the vegetable kingdom,
and that the dust of the antheræ is endowed with an impregnating
power.”[1019]

He was the first to obtain sulphate of magnesia from the Epsom waters,
and to investigate its properties. His treatise on Epsom salts was
published in 1697.

WILLIAM BRIGGS, M.D. (died 1704), was famous for his “skill in
difficult cases of the eye.”

EDWARD TYSON, M.D. (died 1708), wrote on anatomy; he was the Carus of
Garth’s _Dispensary_, and the discoverer of “Tyson’s Glands.”

WILLIAM PITCAIRN, M.D. (1711-1791), was an accomplished botanist. He
lived in the Upper Street, Islington, where he had a botanical garden
five acres in extent, stocked with the scarcest and most valuable
plants. He introduced into St. Bartholomew’s Hospital a much freer use
of opium in the treatment of disease, and especially of fevers, than
had hitherto been customary, and that with the greatest benefit to the
patients.

PETER SHAW, M.D. (1694-1763), greatly facilitated the study of
chemistry in England by his translations of the chemical works of
Stahl and Boerhaave, as well as by his own works. He edited the works
of Bacon and Boyle, and published a number of books on medicine and
chemistry.

WILLIAM HUNTER, M.D. (1718-1783), was an earnest and devoted anatomist
and obstetrician. He was a pupil of Cullen, and was so successful a
practitioner that he expended £100,000 upon his house and anatomical
collection, etc. The Hunterian Museum of the University of Glasgow was
formed from this collection. The famous John Hunter was his younger
brother.

THOMAS DIMSDALE, M.D. (1711-1800), a celebrated promoter of inoculation
for small-pox, acquired a great reputation and immense wealth by the
process. Catherine II. of Russia paid him enormous sums for successful
inoculations, and gave him a barony.

WILLIAM HEBERDEN, M.D. (1710-1801), lectured on Materia Medica at
Cambridge. Dr. Munk[1020] gives an interesting extract from one of
Heberden’s lectures on Mithridatum and Theriaca, the famous classic
medicines; he proves that the only poisons known to the ancients were
hemlock, monk’s-hood, and those of venomous beasts, and that they had
no antidotes for these. He says that the first accounts of powerful
poisons concealed in seals or rings, poisonous vapours in gloves and
letters, etc., are idle inventions of ignorant and superstitious
persons.

BUFFON (1707-1788) was the celebrated French naturalist to whom “we owe
our first clear and practical connection of the distribution of animals
with the geography of the globe.”

GEORGE ARMSTRONG in 1769 opened the first children’s hospital in
Europe; he was the physician who first devoted special attention to the
diseases of children. Armstrong was a London man, and died 1781.

JOH. E. GREDRING (1718-1775) was a German physician who was the first
to investigate “the seat, cause, and diagnosis of insanity.”[1021]

JAMES CURRIE (1756-1805) advocated the cold-water treatment of typhus
fever patients, and thus introduced a method of treatment which
in one form or another is used at the present time for reducing
the temperature of the body in such cases. Currie determined the
temperature by the thermometer.

LADY WORTLEY MONTAGU (1690-1762) is famous in the annals of medicine
for her courageous adoption of the Turkish practice of inoculation
for small-pox in the case of her own son. By her zealous advocacy
she was instrumental in causing the practice to be introduced into
England in 1721. Dr. Keith having subjected his son to the operation,
experiments were conducted upon criminals by Maitland, and these
having been successful, the Prince of Wales and the royal princesses
were inoculated by Mead. On behalf of the Almighty, whose province was
supposed to be trespassed upon by these and similar proceedings, the
practice was violently opposed by the clergy and others.

EDWARD JENNER (1749-1823) introduced the practice of vaccination as a
preventive of small-pox. He commenced his investigations concerning
cow-pox about the year 1776. The practice of inoculation with the
virus of small-pox, which had been introduced into England through
the suggestion of Lady Wortley Montagu, indirectly led Jenner to his
grand discovery. His attention was excited by finding that certain
persons to whom he attempted to communicate small-pox by inoculation
were not susceptible to the disease; on pursuing his inquiries he found
that these persons had undergone cow-pox—a complaint common among the
dairy-servants and farmers in Gloucestershire, and that these people
were aware that cow-pox in some way was a preventive against the
small-pox. Local medical men had long been acquainted with this idea,
but had paid no attention to it, considering it merely a popular and
groundless belief. Jenner’s genius, however, led him to divine the
truth of the matter and turn it to practical advantage. The disease
which affects the udder of the cow was found to be inoculable in the
human subject, and could be propagated from one person to another,
rendering those who had passed through the complaint secure from an
attack of small-pox. Having confided the fact of this discovery to some
medical friends, it was taken up in 1796 by Mr. Clive, of St. Thomas’s
Hospital, who introduced vaccination into London. Vaccination was
adopted in the army and navy, and Jenner was honoured by professional
distinctions and a parliamentary grant of £20,000. He was made a Fellow
of the Royal Society, and his fame and the benefits of his discovery
were rapidly extended to continental nations.




                               BOOK VI.

                         _THE AGE OF SCIENCE._




CHAPTER I.

THE NINTEENTH CENTURY.—PHYSICAL SCIENCE ALLIED TO MEDICINE.

 Exit the Disease-Demon.—Medical Systems again.—Homœopathy.—The
 Natural Sciences.—Chemistry, Electricity, Physiology, Anatomy,
 Medicine and Pathology.—Psychiatry.—Surgery.—Ophthalmology.


With the dawn of modern science was sounded the death-knell of the
disease-demon and its twin brother “Visitation.” When the French
Revolution, having at first intoxicated men, had had time to effect
its really beneficent aims, the age of modern science was fairly
inaugurated, and daily conferred some fresh blessing on the race.
The beginning of the nineteenth century saw the steam engine rapidly
approaching perfection. In 1801 took place the first experiment with
steam navigation on the Thames. In 1814 steam was first applied to
printing in the _Times_ office. In 1829 locomotive steam-carriages were
employed on railways at Liverpool. In the early years of the century
the electric telegraph was being developed. Machinery began to take
the place of hand labour in numberless branches of trade and industry.
Nobler than these material blessings, however, was the awakening of
the English people to a new and higher humanity. It seemed that as
Science began to shower her gifts on our nation, it yearned to become
the almoner of mankind, and in its turn to bless the world with the
precious gifts of freedom, education, improved sanitation, and the
means of developing the dormant higher powers of the species. The slave
trade of England was abolished by Parliament in 1807. In 1834 the
English government began to make annual grants in aid of education.
Sanitary commissions were appointed in 1838 and 1844, which were of
incalculable benefit, not only to our own national health, but in
suggesting to other countries the means of improving the health and
combating the ravages of preventable diseases. In the early years
of the century Dr. Birkbeck founded Mechanics’ Institutions, thus
commencing the era of enlightenment for the working classes, which
has resulted in raising the mental condition of our labouring and
lower middle classes to a higher level than that of any other nation
of the old world. Everywhere schools sprung up, books and newspapers
were multiplied, until everybody who could read had mental provender
provided at a merely nominal rate.

In relation to the history of medicine, the science of the century
has perhaps on the whole done greater service to the healing art
by that which it has taught doctors to leave undone than by what
it has taught them to do. It has arrested the murderous lancet of
the blood-letter; it has stayed the hand of the purger, who merely
bled in another manner; it has rescued the unhappy victims of mental
disorders from their dungeons, their beds of straw, and the cruel lash
of their keepers; it has liberated the invalid from the tyranny of the
medicine-monger; it is no longer possible to force down any patient’s
throat such a mass of filthy concoctions as the following items of
medicine enumerated in an apothecary’s bill for attending one Mr.
Dalby, of Ludgate Hill, which in five days amounted to £17 2_s._ 10_d._

The items for _one day_ (August 12) are:—

                                 _s._ _d._
  An emulsion                     4    6
  A mucilage                      3    4
  Jelly of hawthorn               4    0
  Plaster to dress blister        1    0
  A clyster                       2    6
  An ivory pipe                   1    0
  A cordial bolus                 2    6
  The same again                  2    6
  A cordial draught               2    4
  The same again                  2    4
  Another bolus                   2    6
  Another draught                 2    4
  A glass of cordial spirits      3    6
  Blister to the arm              5    0
  The same to the wrists          5    0
  Two boluses again               5    0
  Two draughts again              4    8
  Another emulsion                4    6
  Another pearl julep             4    6

This is quoted in the _Historical Sketch of the Progress of Pharmacy
in Great Britain_,[1022] p. 17, not as an isolated case, but as an
illustration of the practice of apothecaries when attending patients of
the higher classes.

Homœopathy did much to remedy this state of affairs, and by deluding
people into believing that the billionth of a grain of a certain drug
skilfully manipulated was more effectual than the bolus and decoction
of the medicine-monger, tended gradually to destroy the popular faith
in the dosing system.

The student of medical history is often reminded forcibly of Tennyson’s
lines:—

    “Our little systems have their day;
    They have their day, and cease to be.”

As he reflects on the many schools, sects, and systems which have
dominated the practice of physic, he will often, as he passes them in
review one by one, ask mournfully with Hans Breitmann:—

                      “Vhere ish dot barty now?”

Where now is the Iatro-mathematical School, the party of the
Iatro-chemists, the Brunonian sect? One and all vanished into the
Ewigkeit!

To have maintained, in the zenith of their fame, that either of the
great medical schools could ever have so completely perished would
have been the rankest heresy; to believe now that the germ theory of
disease can ever be superseded is to be subjected to the charge, not of
medical heresy alone, but of the completest ignorance of science. Yet
there are some bold spirits who have dared even this. The history of
the past forbids the cautious historian of medicine to make too sure of
the permanence of any theory of disease or system of cure, but the germ
theory has claims to our acceptance which far outweigh those of any
other theories which we have reviewed. From the length of time it has
been under construction, from the marvellous care and minute caution
exercised by the profound scientists who have devoted their lives and
utmost energies to the innumerable experiments which their researches
have embraced, from the fact that not medical theorists merely, but
sober-minded scientists as well as practical surgeons and physicians,
have everywhere given their adherence to the germ theory of disease, we
have good reason to believe that it will hold its ground as a theory of
the cause—if not of much value as a system of cure—of a great number of
the most serious maladies which afflict the races of men and animals.


MEDICAL SYSTEMS.

GIOVANNI RASORI (1762-1837), of Milan, introduced a theory which was a
revival of Methodism combined with that of Brunonianism. The Methodists
held a status strictus and a status laxus, Brown a sthenic diathesis
and an asthenic diathesis.

Rasori taught a combination of these theories modified by his own. His
doctrines were accepted by a multitude of learned and eminent medical
men, yet his teaching was simply atrocious, and a study of it almost
makes one despair of any real advance for the healing art. His system
of therapeutics consisted in the endeavour to make a diagnosis of the
disease by watching the effects of the remedies which make it better or
worse! Bleeding was held to be the best diagnostic means: if it did the
patient good, the sthenic diathesis was assumed; if it made him worse,
the asthenic was demonstrated.

He administered enormous doses of powerful drugs, such as would be
considered nothing less than simply poisonous now. Baas says he gave 1
to 4 grammes of gamboge for diarrhœa, and 60 to 90 grammes of saltpetre
a day[1023]—doses which would be large for a horse.

The wonder is that anybody survived the treatment.

Homœopathy, faith-healing, peculiar-people treatment, anything,
however heterodox, is better than this licensed system of murder,
which actually received the adhesion of famous professors at Italian
universities, where the art of medicine was supposed to be taught sixty
years ago.

JOHANN A. ROESCHLAUB (1768-1835), a highly cultivated German physician,
was the founder of a medical system on the “Theory of Excitement.” Life
depends upon irritability which belongs to the natural disposition.
To be healthy, the body must be in a state of moderate irritation and
moderate excitability. Disease disturbs the happy medium upwards as
hypersthenia, or downwards as asthenia; in other words, by inducing too
much strength or actual debility.

JOHANN STIEGLITZ (1767-1840) was an eminent physician who opposed
the theory of excitement, saying, “There is no such thing as one
only saving system.” He was the founder of Etiological diagnosis (or
diagnosis dependent on a knowledge of the causes of disease).

C. W. VON HUFELAND (1762-1836), professor at Jena, and afterwards in
Berlin, opposed the theory of excitement. He used to say, “Successful
treatment requires only one-third science and two-thirds _savoir
faire_,” and, “To him who fails to make a religion of the healing art,
it is the most cheerless, wearisome, and thankless art upon earth;
indeed, in him it must become the greatest frivolity and a sin.”

F. J. W. BROUSSAIS (1772-1838), a physician of the vitalist school,
was a devoted follower of Bichat, who made it his chief aim to find an
anatomical basis for all diseases. He is particularly known for his
theory that all fevers arise from irritation or inflammation of the
intestinal canal. His long-exploded theory led to an enormous misuse
of bleeding. He christened his system “Physiological Medicine,” which
by directing attention to the morbid changes in the organs, led to the
rise of the pathological school of Corvisart, Laënnec, and Bayle. The
systems of Brown and Broussais must have destroyed, says Dr. De Noé
Walker, more human beings than the whole revolutionary wars from 1793
to 1815.

SAMUEL C. F. HAHNEMANN (1755-1843), the founder of Homœopathy, was
born at Meissen, near Dresden. He studied medicine at Leipsic, and
afterwards at Vienna, graduating at Erlangen in 1779. In his first
medical treatise he takes a despondent view of medical practice in
general, and of his own in particular, as he is candid enough to own
that most of his patients would have done better had they been let
alone.

In a letter to Hufeland upon the necessity of a regeneration in
medicine (1808), he declares that after eight years’ practice he had so
learned the delusive nature of the ordinary methods of treatment as to
be compelled to relinquish practice. He devoted much attention to the
science of chemistry.

Berzelius said of him, “That man would have been a great chemist had
he not been a great quack.” He translated Cullen’s _Materia Medica_ in
1790, and the necessary study of medicinal agents which this involved
set him thinking of a new theory of disease and cure which should
replace that which he had found so unsatisfactory; he came to the
conclusion, as the result of his researches, that “medicines must only
have the power of curing diseases similar to those which they produce
in the healthy body, and only manifest such morbid actions as they are
capable of curing in diseases.”[1024]

He thus proceeded to lay down the homœopathic law that the power of
medicines to alter the health must be _proved_ on the healthy body. He
endeavoured to discover a rule by which the effect of remedies might be
ascertained, and which should supersede the old method of working in
the dark.

Considering the endless powers which medicines possess, and feeling
sure that the Creator intended them to have some purpose, and that
to lighten the afflictions of the race, he felt that there must be
a better way of employing them than that which he considered had so
grievously failed in the past. He was therefore henceforth the enemy
of all empiricism. Antipathy, or the method by which contraries are
cured by contraries, so that the diseased part is acted upon by
something that opposes it, he considered a fatal error in medical
practice. Contrary medicine he held could at best be palliative and
temporary, not curative. He designated as Allopathy the method by which
it is attempted to remove natural disease from one part by exciting
artificial disease in another, or the principle of counter irritation.

The sciences of anatomy and physiology are quite superfluous to the
homœopathist; the remedies being merely addressed to symptoms, the
knowledge of their causes can have little or no concern to those who
follow Hahnemann’s doctrines. The application of a remedy for facial
neuralgia, as Dr. Mapother points out,[1025] has been applied over the
motor nerve of the face, the inventor being ignorant that it has no
connection with sensibility.

Hahnemann taught that all chronic maladies proceed from the itch.

Amongst other remedies for the itch, or psora, the swallowing of
lice or a decoction of them was seriously recommended, because these
parasites tickle the skin, and on the like-cures-like principle, would
be beneficial for itch![1026]


THE NATURAL SCIENCES.

The Natural Sciences in the closing years of the eighteenth century
began to render the most important services to the art of medicine, and
from that time onwards it has marked its progress step by step with the
advances of botany, chemistry, and physics. Linnæus invented a system
of the classification of plants which Adanson, Jussieu, De Candolle,
and others did much to improve; the anatomy and physiology, and even
the pathology of plants were closely studied, with results of the
greatest value to scientific medicine. Buffon excited the interest of
men of science by his declaration that there is no essential difference
between animals and plants, and that all organic life follows the
same plan. He explained the geographical distribution of the animal
kingdom. Hunter, Blumenbach, St. Hilaire, Cuvier, and others advanced
the sciences of comparative anatomy and physiology, and Lamarck divided
bony animals into _vertebrata_ and _invertebrata_. Cuvier, by founding
the doctrine of types, explained the general plan on which animals are
modelled. Pander and Baer rendered the greatest services to the study
of development—the former by his researches on the development of the
chick, the latter by his observations on the cleavage in the ovum. To
Hunter, Kielmeyer, and Owen in a later period we owe the most important
discovery—that the higher animals, even man himself, in the embryo pass
through the stages of development of the lower animals.


CHEMISTS.

JOSEPH PRIESTLY discovered oxygen in 1772, and thus introduced a new
chemical era. LAVOISIER, however, was the first to observe the vast
importance of the discovery, and CAVENDISH established his theories
by his researches on the composition of the air, water, and acids. It
is to Lavoisier’s discoveries in relation to oxygen that physiology
is indebted for the knowledge of the influence of that element on
respiration and the blood. Doctors looked upon it as the “air of life,”
and in its excess or deficiency saw the causes of certain diseases.
FOURCROY applied himself to the study of medical chemistry.

BERTHOLLET discovered the composition of ammonia, and the bleaching
properties of chlorine. He discovered chlorate of potash, and founded
the doctrine of chemical affinity.

DALTON (1776-1844) by his atomic theory and his discovery of the law
of multiple proportions still further advanced the science; in 1794 he
first described colour-blindness.

BERZELIUS (1779-1848) developed the atomic theory and improved our
knowledge of animal chemistry.

GAY-LUSSAC in 1805, with ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT, discovered that water
is composed of one volume of oxygen and two volumes of hydrogen.

SIR HUMPHRY DAVY (1788-1829) discovered the anæsthetic effect of
nitrous oxide gas, invented the safety-lamp for miners, and greatly
advanced the study of agricultural chemistry.

DUMAS (1800-1884) investigated the alkaloids.

PELLETIER in 1820 discovered quinine.

ORFILA (1787-1853), one of the most eminent men of the French school of
medicine, founded modern toxicology, the science of poisons. His fame
chiefly rests on his _Treatise of General Toxicology_ (1814), which is
a vast mine of experimental research on the symptoms of every kind of
poisoning.

SIR WILLIAM HYDE WOOLASTON, M.D. (1766-1828), was a distinguished
philosopher and chemist. One of his great discoveries was the
malleability of platinum, which is said to have produced him no less
than thirty thousand pounds. He was even more famous as a student of
ophthalmology than as a chemist.

MICHAEL FARADAY (1791-1867) was the great chemist, whose glory in
chemical science was overshadowed by his electrical discoveries.

JUSTUS VON LIEBIG (1803-1873) influenced the history of chemistry
by his successful efforts to spread the knowledge of the science
by improving the methods of investigation, and above all by the
application of chemistry to physiology, agriculture, and the arts.


ELECTRICIANS.

The history of electricity has an important bearing on that of
medicine. It will be necessary at least to indicate the chief points in
its progress. GILBERT published a treatise on the magnet in 1600. He
speaks of magnetic phenomena, and the extravagant stories circulated
about the attraction of magnets and amber by persons who gave no reason
from experiment. He distinguished magnetic from electric forces,[1027]
and it is to him that we owe the term “electric” itself.[1028]

Boyle repeated the experiments of GILBERT, but seems to have made no
discoveries. OTTO GUERICKE, of Magdeburg, next discovered that there
is electric force of repulsion as well as of attraction. HAWKSBEE, in
his _Physico-Mechanical Experiments_, 1709, observed the effects of
attraction and repulsion on threads hanging loosely. DUFAY, in 1733,
1734, and 1737, observed that electric bodies attract all those that
are not so, and repel them as soon as they are become electric by the
vicinity or contact of the electric body. In 1729, GREY discovered the
properties of _conductors_.

FRANKLIN distinguished between positive and negative electricity in
1747, and demonstrated the identity of the electric spark and lightning
in 1752. GALVANI in 1791 laid the foundation of the Galvanic Battery.
VOLTA discovered the “Voltaic pile” in 1800. Henceforward year by year
the science progressed by leaps and bounds. The use of the magnet in
medicine was known to Aetius, who lived A.D. 500. He says: “We are
assured that those who are troubled with the gout in their hands or
their feet, or with convulsions, find relief when they hold a magnet
in their hand.” Beckmann says[1029] this is the oldest account of
this virtue of the magnet. The more ancient writers refer only to its
internal uses. Lessing ascribes the external use of the magnet as a
cure for toothache and other disorders to Paracelsus. Marcellus in the
fifteenth century assures us that the magnet cures toothache, as also
does Leonard Camillus in the sixteenth century. Wecker about the same
period says it cures headache. Porta (1591) confirms this, and Kircher
(1643) states that it was worn about the neck to prevent convulsions
and nervous disorders. Magnetic toothpicks and ear-pickers were
extolled as cures for disorders of the teeth, ears, and eyes about the
end of the seventeenth century.[1030]


ANTHROPOLOGY.

JOH. F. BLUMENBACH (1752-1840), professor in Göttingen, was the founder
of Anthropology. He collected a great museum of skulls, and was famous
as a comparative anatomist. He wrote on physiology, anatomy, and
natural history.


PHILOSOPHERS.

VON SCHELLING (1775-1854) taught that “God is the indifference of the
ideal and real, soul and body, and the identity of subjectivity and
objectivity. In a word, the All.” He held that health is the harmony of
reproduction, irritability, and sensibility; disease, the alteration
of dimensions of the organism, by which it ceases to be a pure,
untroubled reflex of the All.

G. W. F. HEGEL (1770-1831) was the philosopher whose supreme principle
was absolute reason, and to whom in a great measure is due what is
known as Modern Materialism. He was opposed by R. H. LOTZE (1817-1884),
a medical philosopher of Göttingen, the author of the _Mikrokosmos_
and works on pathology, physiology, and psychology. He laid it down
that the significance of the phenomena of life and mind would only
unfold itself when by an exhausted survey of the entire life of man,
individually, socially, and historically, we gain the necessary data
for explaining the microcosm by the macrocosm of the universe. The
world of facts and the laws of nature are only to be understood by the
idea of a personal deity.

       *       *       *       *       *

CHARLES DARWIN (1809-1882), grandson of Erasmus Darwin, startled and
shocked the whole Christian world by his theory that man has possibly
descended at a highly remote period from “a group of marine animals
resembling the larvæ of existing Ascidians.” He traced our ancestry
through the fish, amphibian, marsupial, and ape species; a theory
which, despite the original opposition it excited, is now generally
accepted. He is best known in connection with medical science by his
famous work, _On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection_,
1859, his _Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex_, 1871, and
_The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals_, 1872. At first his
theory of the Descent of Man was held to teach that

    “A very tall pig with a very long nose
    Puts forth a proboscis quite down to his toes,
    And then by the name of an elephant goes.”

Darwin recognised not merely a God but a Creator.


ANATOMISTS AND BIOLOGISTS.

SIR RICHARD OWEN, M.D., F.R.S., etc. (1804-1892), the celebrated
comparative anatomist and palæontologist, made it possible for us to
see what the extinct monsters were when he enabled us to construct
scientifically the models of the megatherium, plesiosaurus, and other
animals of remote ages. It has been well said of him that “the most
characteristic of his faculties was a powerful scientific imagination.
Fragments of bone which might be meaningless to less alert observers
enabled him to divine the structure and to present the images of whole
groups of extinct animal forms.”

At the suggestion of Dr. Abernethy (whose pupil he had been) he was
invited in 1828 to prepare the catalogue of the Hunterian collection in
the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, of which Mr. Clift (whom
he eventually succeeded and whose daughter he married) was conservator.
This great work largely occupied some of the best years of Owen’s life,
the three quarto volumes on the Fossil Vertebrates and Cephalopods of
the collection not appearing till 1855. Meanwhile he had given to the
world his _Odontography_, his _Lectures on Comparative Anatomy and
Physiology_ (which won a continental reputation), and his famous work
on the _Archetype and Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton_. In 1849
he issued an important memoir _On Parthenogenesis_.

In 1856 Owen was appointed Superintendent of the Department of Natural
History in the British Museum, which, through his untiring exertions,
was at last to be suitably housed at South Kensington. In 1861 he
published his manual of _Paleontology_; from 1865 to 1877 a succession
of works on British Fossil Reptiles and the Fossil Reptiles of South
Africa.

F. G. HENLE (1809-1885) so early as 1840 advocated the germ theory of
disease. It was first suggested, however, by Latour’s discovery of the
yeast plant in 1836.

ST. GEORGE MIVART, M.D., F.R.S. (born 1827), the distinguished
anatomist and zoologist, is to a certain extent the opponent of Darwin,
as he denies that the doctrine of Evolution is applicable to the human
intellect. He is the author of many works on anatomy, biology, and
zoology.

THOMAS HUXLEY, F.R.S., M.D. (born 1825), the famous physiologist and
comparative anatomist and biologist, is a well-known writer on natural
science, and the most prominent of the scientific opponents of revealed
religion.

DR. ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE (born 1822), the eminent naturalist,
published his _Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection_ in
1870, and in 1878, in his volume _Tropical Nature_, still further
contributes to our knowledge of sexual selection, etc.

ERNST HAECKEL (born 1834), a celebrated German naturalist and writer on
science, is the chief supporter in Germany of Darwin’s theories. It may
be remembered in this connection that these were anticipated to some
extent by Lamarck (1744-1829) and Goethe (1749-1832).

HERBERT SPENCER (born 1820) has devoted his life mainly to the working
out of his “System of Synthetic Philosophy,” which proposed “to carry
out in its application to all orders of phenomena the general law of
evolution.”

GEORGE J. ROMANES, F.R.S. (born 1848), an ardent member of the
Darwinian school, is a distinguished physiologist and biologist.


PHYSICIANS AND PATHOLOGISTS.

LEOPOLD AUENBRUGGER (1722-1809), a physician of Vienna, was the
inventor of the method of detecting diseases of the chest by
percussion. By striking the chest _directly_ with the tips of the
fingers (not as we do now by interposing a finger of our left hand
while we percuss the chest mediately with the fingers of the other
hand) he diagnosed by the sound evoked the condition of the organs of
the thorax. His system was at first received with contempt and ridicule
by his profession; but in 1808, Corvisart translated Auenbrugger’s
great work, the _Inventum Novum_, into French, and the method quickly
achieved an European reputation.

RENÉ T. H. LAËNNEC (1781-1826), the celebrated French pathologist,
was the inventor of the stethoscope. His great discovery was purely
accidental—a fact which he declares in his famous work.

“In 1816 I was consulted by a young woman labouring under general
symptoms of diseased heart, and in whose case percussion and the
application of the hand were of little avail on account of the great
degree of fatness. I happened to recollect a simple and well-known fact
in acoustics, and fancied it might be turned to some use on the present
occasion. The fact I allude to is the great distinctness with which we
hear the scratch of a pin at one end of a piece of wood, on applying
our ear to the other. Immediately, on this suggestion, I rolled a
quire of paper into a kind of cylinder, and applied one end of it to
the region of the heart and the other to my ear, and was not a little
surprised and pleased to find that I could thereby perceive the action
of the heart in a manner much more clear and distinct than I had ever
been able to do by the immediate application of the ear.”[1031]

JEAN N. CORVISART (1755-1821) introduced into France Auenbrugger’s
method of percussion, one of the most important aids to _physical
diagnosis_.

GASPARD L. BAYLE (1774-1816) made those important researches on
tubercle and the changes in the lungs and other organs in consumption
which form the basis of our present knowledge of the subject. From
this time French physicians introduced great precision in their study
of symptoms, so as to invest them with a really scientific character.
Combined with the perfected methods of anatomical observation, a new
era in clinical medicine dates from this period.

LOUIS (1787-1872) made important researches on pulmonary consumption
and typhoid fever, and introduced the numerical or statistical method
in medical science, which was an important step towards making it an
exact science.

SIR ROBERT CHRISTISON (1797-1882) discovered the effects and properties
of Calabar bean, and was the most famous of all English investigators
of poisons and poisoning.

JOHN CHEYNE (1777-1836), in conjunction with WILLIAM STOKES
(1804-1878), a great clinical teacher and author of works on diseases
of the chest and heart, discovered the form of breathing in certain
disordered conditions which is called “Cheyne-Stokes’ respiration.”

ROBERT J. GRAVES (1797-1853), a great observer and clinical teacher,
gave his name to a disease.

SIR WILLIAM JENNER, M.D. (born 1815), was the first to establish beyond
dispute the difference between typhus and typhoid fevers.

JOHN HUGHES BENNETT, M.D. (1812-1875), was the first to introduce the
use of cod-liver oil in consumption into English practice (1841). He
claimed also to have discovered leucocythemia before Virchow.

ALFRED SWAYNE TAYLOR, M.D. (1806-1880), was the founder of forensic
medicine in England, and his great work on Medical Jurisprudence
(published 1836) has long been the standard authority in medico-legal
cases.

THOMAS HODGKIN (1797-1866) discovered the disease which goes by his
name.

CHARLES MURCHISON, M.D. (1830-1879), is celebrated for his researches
in epidemic diseases.

SIR THOMAS WATSON (1792-1882) was the author of the ever-popular
lectures, _The Practice of Physic_, a work whose graces of style and
elegance of phraseology entitle it to be considered a medical classic.

MATTHEW BAILLIE (1761-1823) was a famous pathologist. He devoted
special attention to the pathology of the brain, heart, lungs, stomach,
and intestines. It was he who first described the grey miliary tubercle
of consumption. In all his profound researches he never failed to
remember their practical end in the cure of disease.

JOHN ABERCROMBIE (1780-1844) is celebrated for his researches on
diseases of the brain and spinal cord.

RICHARD BRIGHT (1789-1858), the reformer of renal pathology, was the
discoverer of the disease which bears his name.

THOMAS ADDISON (1793-1860) discovered the disease of the suprarenal
bodies which is called after him.

KARL V. ROKITANSKY (1804-1878), one of the most famous of the founders
of the New Vienna School, was so indefatigable a pathologist that he is
said to have celebrated his thirty-thousandth post-mortem in 1866. His
great work, _The Handbook of Pathological Anatomy_, was published in
1841.

JOSEPH SKODA (1805-1881), a physician of the New Vienna School,
improved physical diagnosis by his application of the laws of sound. He
rendered percussion more perfect by correctly explaining the import of
the various sounds heard on striking the chest. He threw great light
upon our knowledge of the phenomena of heart diseases.

HEBRA (1816-1880) created a revolution in the science of skin diseases
by basing it upon pathological anatomy.

WUNDERLICH (1815-1877) introduced the use of the clinical thermometer
as an important aid to diagnosis, and claimed that “pathology is the
physiology of sick men.”

RUDOLPH VIRCHOW (born 1821), the constructor of the cellular pathology,
is a celebrated German pathologist and anthropologist. On the basis
of the cellular theory, which teaches that the cells live their own
independent life, have their own active properties, proliferations
and degenerations, Virchow built up his cellular pathology into a
comprehensive system, attaching greater importance to the cell changes
than to an altered condition of the circulation or quality of the
blood, as was previously held to account for pathological changes.
The theory explains many facts which were previously obscure, but is
not wholly satisfactory. Virchow’s system led to the foundation of
pathological histology.

SIR ANDREW CLARK, M.D., F.R.S., President of the College of Physicians,
London (born 1826), is a physician distinguished alike for his profound
scientific knowledge and his admirable skill in its application to
the relief and cure of disease. As a physiologist, anatomist, and
pathologist, especially in connection with the organs of respiration,
the kidneys, and digestive functions, Sir Andrew Clark occupies the
foremost place in English medical practice of the time. He has written
extensively on diseases of the chest, is one of the most brilliant
clinical lecturers of the day, and for many years has been a chief
attraction in the teaching power of the London Hospital.

SIR EDWARD H. SIEVEKING, M.D., etc. (born 1816), was with Dr. H. Jones
joint-author of the well-known _Manual of Pathological Anatomy_ (1854).

SAMUEL WILKS, M.D., F.R.S., etc. (born 1824), is an eminent pathologist
and neurologist. He published his excellent _Lectures on Pathological
Anatomy_ in 1859.[1032]


BRAIN AND NERVE SPECIALISTS.

PHILIPPE PINEL (1745-1826), a French physician, published a translation
of Cullen’s _Nosology_ (1785) in the language of his country. His claim
to our gratitude rests on the fact that he was among the first to
introduce the humane treatment of the insane. With his own hands he,
when physician to the Bicêtre and Salpêtrière, removed the bonds of
insane patients who had been chained to the wall for years.

SIR CHARLES BELL (1774-1842) made the greatest discoveries in
physiology since those of Harvey. We owe to him the knowledge that in
the nervous trunks are special sensory filaments whose office is to
convey impressions from the periphery to the sensorium, and special
motor filaments which convey motor impressions from the brain or other
nerve centre to the muscles. This great discovery of the functions of
the nerves, concerning which there previously existed much confusion
amongst physiologists, was published in 1807, and entitles England to
claim that in Bell and Harvey she has given to science the two most
distinguished physiologists of the world.

FRANZ J. GALL (1757-1828) was a skilful Viennese anatomist, who, by his
researches upon the anatomy of the brain, came to the conclusion that
the talents and dispositions of men may be inferred with exactitude
from the external appearance of the skull, and thus founded phrenology.

CASPAR SPURZHEIM (1776-1832), an anatomist, was a pupil of Gall, and
assisted in the development of phrenology.

JEAN M. CHARCOT (born 1825) is a Paris physician greatly distinguished
by his important investigations in diseases of the nervous system, upon
which he has written many works.

PIERRE FLOURENS (1794-1867), a distinguished French physiologist,
sought to assign their special functions to the brain, corpora
quadrigemina, and lesser brain by experiments. In 1847 he directed
the attention of the Academy of Sciences to the anæsthetic effect of
chloroform upon animals. Chloric ether in the same year was used at St.
Bartholomew’s Hospital as an anæsthetic in operations by Dr. Furnell.

ARMAND TROUSSEAU (1801-1866) was an eloquent and popular clinical
lecturer on medicine. He introduced tracheotomy in croup, and largely
contributed to our knowledge of laryngeal phthisis, etc.

CLAUDE BERNARD (1813-1878), the celebrated experimental physiologist
and pathologist, made numerous researches on the digestion of fat by
the pancreatic juice, the formation of sugar in the liver, and the
artificial production of diabetes by puncturing the fourth ventricle
of the brain, etc. He wrote _Physiologie et Pathologie du Systeme
nerveux_, 1858.

BROWN-SEQUARD (born 1817), the experimental physiologist, discovered
the vaso-motor nerves. He has investigated the functions of the spinal
cord, its normal and pathological states, the brain and sympathetic
nerves and ganglions, the inhibitory and other nerves.

PAUL BERT (1833-1886) was a physiologist and neuro-pathologist.

G. B. DUCHENNE (1806-1875) introduced electro-therapeutics by means of
the induced current in diseases of the nervous system.

ROBERT REMAK (1815-1865) still further pursued the treatment of nervous
diseases by means of the constant current. He investigated the subject
of the parasitic origin of certain diseases of the skin, and produced
favus experimentally.

ELIE VON CYON (born 1843) continued the investigation of
electro-therapeutics.

MARSHALL HALL (1790-1857) discovered reflex action, which fact he
communicated to the Royal Society in 1833.

JAMES BRAID, a Manchester surgeon, in 1841 investigated mesmerism,
and discovered what is now called hypnotism. He found that he could
artificially produce “a peculiar condition of the nervous system,
induced by a fixed and abstracted attention of the mental and visual
eye on one object, not of an exciting nature.” Thus Braid was the first
to investigate the subject scientifically, and to trace the phenomena
of mesmerism to their true physiological cause. Dr. Rudolf Heidenhain,
of Breslau, has recently traced these phenomena to inhibitory nervous
action.[1033]

HENRY MAUDSLEY, M.D. (born 1835), is the author of several important
works on mental diseases: _The Physiology of Mind_, _The Pathology of
Mind_, _Body and Mind_, and _Responsibility in Mental Disease_.

JOHN CONOLLY (1796-1866) was physician to Hanwell Asylum. To him is
due the honour of having first in England pressed upon the notice of
his profession the advantages of the “No Restraint” system in mental
diseases.

DR. FORBES WINSLOW was a popular and humane “mad doctor.”

JOHN C. BUCKNILL, M.D., F.R.S., etc. (born 1817), is a distinguished
student of mental diseases, and the author of several treatises on
Unsoundness of Mind in relation to Crime and Drunkenness. He is one of
the original editors of _Brain_, and for nine years he has edited the
_Journal of Mental Science_.

DAVID FERRIER, M.D., F.R.S., etc. (born 1843), a specialist in brain
surgery, is well known for his researches in cerebral physiology
and pathology, and has acquired great celebrity throughout the
English-speaking world for his investigations connected with the
localisation of the functions of the brain.

PAUL BROCA (1824-1880), the surgeon and anatomist, discovered that the
faculty of speech lies in the third left frontal convolution of the
brain, which in his honour is called Broca’s convolution.

JULES BECLARD (1818-1887) was a distinguished French physiologist.

HENRY C. BASTIAN, M.D., F.R.S. (b. 1837), is a pathological anatomist
and cerebral physiologist. His _Brain as an Organ of Mind_, 1880, is
one of his best known works, and his articles in Quain’s _Dictionary of
Medicine_, on Diseases of the Spinal Cord and Nervous System generally,
are equally valuable contributions to this department of medical
science.

JOHN HUGHLINGS JACKSON, M.D., F.R.S., although distinguished as an
ophthalmologist, is more famous for his researches and discoveries in
connection with the nervous system and the localisation of cerebral
functions.

DR. JULIUS ALTHAUS has made many valuable contributions to our
knowledge of the nervous system.

VICTOR A. H. HORSLEY, F.R.S., etc., pathologist and brain surgeon, is
the author of many papers on the functions of the brain and spinal
cord, and has made important contributions to our knowledge of the
functions of the thyroid gland, hitherto little understood, by which
the treatment of myxœdema will, it is hoped, be greatly improved.


SURGEONS.

The founding of museums of anatomy and surgical pathology by the
HUNTERS, DUPUYTREN, CLOQUET, BLUMENBACH, BARCLAY, and a great
number of other anatomists and surgeons, has greatly assisted to
advance the practical surgery of this century. Some of the more
important improvements in the art as practised at the present time
are the following, which are given in the article on Surgery in the
_Encyclopædia Britannica_:—The thin thread ligature for arteries,
introduced by JONES, of Jersey (1805); the revival of the twisting
of arteries to arrest bleeding by AMUSSAT (1829); the practice of
drainage in large wounds and after operations by CHASSAIGNAC (1859);
aspiration or the application of the principle of the air-pump for
removing pus and fluid from tumours, etc., by PELLETAN and others; the
plaster-of-Paris bandage and other similar immovable applications for
fractures, etc. (an old Eastern practice recommended in Europe about
1814 by the English consul at Bassorah); the re-breaking of badly set
fractures; galvanocaustics and écraseurs; the general introduction
of resection of joints (FERGUSSON, SYME, and others); tenotomy by
DELPECH and STROMEYER (1831); operation for squint by DIEFFENBACH
(1842); successful ligature of great arteries by ABERNETHY and ASTLEY
COOPER (1806); crushing of stone in the bladder by GRUITHUISEN of
Munich (1819), and CIVIALE of Paris (1826); cure of ovarian dropsy by
the removal of the cyst, discovery of the ophthalmoscope, and great
improvements in ophthalmic surgery by VON GRÄFE and others; application
of the laryngoscope in operations on the larynx by CZERMAK (1860) and
others, together with additions to the resources of aural surgery and
dentistry.

In the treatment of fractures English surgery was inferior to that
of continental practice, especially French, in the early part of the
present century. M. ROUX in 1814 pointed out our shortcomings in
this respect, contrasting English with French methods much to our
disadvantage.[1034]

SIR WM. BLIZZARD (1743-1835) was the first surgeon who tied the
superior thyroid artery for goitre. He founded in conjunction with
Maclaurin the medical school of the London Hospital.

BENJAMIN BELL (1763-1820), of Edinburgh, was the elder brother of Sir
Charles Bell. He was professor of anatomy, surgery, and obstetrics, a
man of letters and a famous operator. He published a _System of the
Anatomy of the Human Body_ and _The Principles of Surgery_.

JOHN ABERNETHY (1764-1831), the celebrated surgeon and lecturer on
anatomy, became the founder of the distinguished school of surgery and
anatomy at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London.

SIR ASTLEY COOPER (1768-1841) was the first surgeon to tie the
abdominal aorta.

SIR BENJAMIN BRODIE (1783-1862) was an anatomist and physiologist, as
well as a distinguished surgeon.

ABRAHAM COLLES, M.D. (1773-1843), was an eminent Dublin surgeon, the
author of a work on _Surgical Anatomy_, who has given his name to the
fracture of the radius at the wrist.

JOHN BURNS, M.D. (1775-1850), was a teacher of surgery and midwifery
at Glasgow. His world-wide reputation was gained for him by his
_Principles of Midwifery_.

JAMES WARDROP (1782-1869) was the author of a well-known treatise on
the pathology of the human eye.

BENJAMIN TRAVERS (1783-1858) was celebrated for his theory of
“Constitutional Irritation.”

LISTON (1794-1847) was famous for his resections of the elbow and other
joints.

SIR WM. LAURENCE (1783-1867) was one of the greatest clinical teachers
the British school of surgery has produced.

GEORGE GUTHRIE (1785-1856) accompanied Wellington in his campaigns, and
was in his time the great English authority on military surgery.

JAMES SYME (1799-1870) was a distinguished teacher of clinical surgery.
He improved the operation of exarticulation at the knee-joint, and
recommended the operation for amputating at the ankle which goes by his
name.

SIR JAMES PAGET, F.R.S. (born 1814), the distinguished surgeon, is the
author of the _Pathological Catalogue of the Museum of the College of
Surgeons_, _Lectures on Surgical Pathology_, etc.

JOHN ERIC ERICHSEN, F.R.S. (born 1818), is the author of _The Science
and Art of Surgery_, which has not only gone through nine large
editions in this country, but has passed through many editions in
America, and has been translated into German, Spanish, Italian, and
Chinese (partly). Probably no treatise on English surgery has exercised
so much influence on the progress of this branch of the healing art as
Mr. Erichsen’s noble work.

JONATHAN HUTCHINSON, F.R.S. (born 1828), one of the most distinguished
surgeons of the Victorian age, is famous throughout the empire as a
clinical teacher, especially in connection with specific and skin
diseases.

SIR HENRY THOMPSON (born 1820), the distinguished surgeon and
pathologist, is famous for his researches in the pathology of the
urethra and prostate gland, and for his clinical teaching in lithotomy
and lithotrity. He has taken an active part in the cremation propaganda.

SIR W. J. ERASMUS WILSON (1809-1884) was the famous specialist in
skin diseases, whose munificent benefactions to the Royal College of
Surgeons have enormously extended the resources of its museum and
library.


GYNÆCOLOGISTS.

SIR T. SPENCER WELLS, M.D. (born 1818), the celebrated ovariotomist,
and MR. LAWSON TAIT, well described by Dr. Baas as “the magical
operator and despiser of antiseptics,” in abdominal diseases,
especially those of women, are without rivals in the world as
benefactors to humanity by their life-saving discoveries.


ANATOMY IN ENGLAND.

Until 1832 the bodies of executed murderers were ordered for
dissection, by 32 Hen. VIII. c. 42, 1540. Surgeons were granted four
bodies of executed malefactors for “_anathomyes_” which privilege was
extended in the following reigns; but in consequence of the crimes
committed by “resurrection men” in order to supply the medical schools,
a new statute was passed in 1832, which prohibited the dissection of
murderers, and provided for the necessities of the dissecting room by
permitting, under certain regulations, the dissection of the bodies of
unclaimed persons dying in workhouses, etc.

Inspectors of anatomy were appointed, and various regulations were
made for the decent and reverent disposal of the remains. The Anatomy
Act was passed in consequence of the scandals connected with the
great Anatomy School at Edinburgh, at which Dr. Knox was a celebrated
teacher. It was discovered that a murderer named Burke provided bodies
for surgeons by killing his victims by suffocation, leaving no marks of
violence. The crime was known as Burking, and to remove the temptation
to such scandals as the robbery of graveyards, and the murder of
persons for the sake of the prices paid for their bodies, the wants of
the surgeons were provided for in a legal manner.


FRENCH SURGEONS.

ALEXIS BOYER (1757-1833), one of the most eminent French teachers of
surgery, wrote a great work on surgical diseases and operations, in
eleven volumes.

JEAN D. LARRY (1766-1842) was a famous military surgeon under Napoleon.
His opportunities for studying his profession must have been unique, as
he participated in sixty great battles and four hundred engagements.
He wrote several treatises on military medicine and invented field
ambulances.

PHILIBERT J. ROUX (1780-1854), surgeon to the Hôtel Dieu at Paris,
practised resections of joints, by which the articular diseased
extremity of the bone is removed and a false joint formed.

JACQUES LISFRANC (1790-1847) was a famous amputator, whose operation
for the partial removal of the foot is known by his name.

ARMAND VELPEAU (1795-1867) was a celebrated teacher of clinical surgery.

JOSEPH MALGAIGNE (1806-1865) was a very distinguished writer on
surgical anatomy and operative surgery.

AUGUSTE NELATON (1807-1874) was called “the Napoleon of Surgery.” He
invented the probe by which he detected the bullet in the wound of
Garibaldi.


GERMAN SURGEONS.

Plastic operations were revived by C. F. VON GRAEFE, of Warsaw
(1787-1840), DELPECH, DIEFFENBACH, B. LANGENBECK, and others. After
severe burns there is frequently great loss of skin; it was found
that this could be repaired by the transplantation of very minute
portions of skin from healthy surfaces; periosteum and bones were also
successfully transplanted.

VON KERN (1769-1829), the great Viennese surgeon, emphatically insisted
that surgery could not be divorced from medicine. He adopted the very
opposite treatment of wounds to that followed now by Lister; instead of
excluding the air for fear of the germs contained in it, he insisted
that operative wounds should be freely exposed to the atmosphere. He
applied the simplest dressings of wet lint.

F. SCHUH (1804-1865) greatly advanced scientific surgery by advocating
the use of the microscope in pathological anatomy.

VON WALTHER (1782-1849) was a great and scrupulously careful surgical
operator, who, like Kern, declared that surgery and medicine are
indivisible.

VON CHELIUS (1794-1876), a famous teacher of clinical surgery at
Heidelberg, was a well-known writer on surgery.

CONRAD J. M. LANGENBECK (1776-1851) and BERNHARD LANGENBECK (1810-1887)
greatly contributed to found military surgery in Germany.

G. F. L. STROMEYER (1804-1876), a famous military surgeon of Germany,
obtained great success in that department of operative surgery known as
subcutaneous division of tendons for the relief and cure of deformities
such as club foot.

FRIEDRICH ESMARCH (born 1823) is famous for his invention of the
method of bloodless amputations of limbs by the use of the bandage of
india-rubber which goes by his name.


AMERICAN SURGEONS.

VALENTINE MOTT (1785-1865), the celebrated New York surgeon, is said
to have tied more arteries for the relief or cure of surgical diseases
than any other surgeon.

SAMUEL GROSS (1805-1884), a great American teacher of surgery, was the
author of the well-known _System of Surgery_.


OPHTHALMIC SURGEONS.

J. A. H. REIMARUS (1729-1814), of Hamburg, first employed belladonna in
ophthalmic surgery.

JOSEPH BARTH (1745-1818), of Malta, founded an ophthalmic hospital, and
first lectured on eye diseases and their treatment.

JUNG-STILLING (1740-1817) was a celebrated coucher of cataracts.

DR. THOMAS YOUNG (1773-1829) rendered great services to optical
science, and was the first to describe astigmatism, or the want of
symmetry in the anterior refracting surfaces of the eyeball—a disorder
of vision which has considerable influence in causing headache.

J. A. SCHMIDT (1759-1809) first described syphilitic iritis; he called
eye disease with great justice “the elegant diminishing mirror of
diseases of the body.”

C. HIMLY (1772-1837) used mydriatics (dilators of the pupil, such
as hyoscyamus and belladonna) in operations on the eye. Atropine
afterwards superseded these.

G. J. BEER (1763-1821), a professor of Vienna, founded the famous
teaching of the Vienna school of ophthalmology, and greatly improved
the practice of the art and the instruments employed in it.

H. L. HELMHOLTZ (born 1821) invented that powerful aid to the
ophthalmic surgeon—the ophthalmoscope—in 1851. It is said that the
observation of the reddening of the pupil in a drowning cat first
suggested the invention to Méry in 1704. Helmholtz’s invention made
scientific ophthalmology possible. This branch of surgery may be said
to date from this great discovery.

HERMANN SNELLEN (born 1834), an oculist of Utrecht, introduced test
types for ascertaining the distinctness of vision.

R. BRUDENELL CARTER, the eminent ophthalmologist, is a well-known and
graceful writer on medical and scientific subjects.




CHAPTER II.

MEDICAL REFORMS.

 Discovery of Anæsthetics.—Medical Literature.—Nursing Reform.—History
 of the Treatment of the Insane.


CONSERVATIVE SURGERY.

What is known as “conservative surgery” is the distinguishing feature
of the art as practised at the present day. Whatever Lord Tennyson
may have had in his mind in his lines on the children’s hospital, the
highest surgical practice now is to save diseased and injured parts as
much as possible, instead of removing them. Antiseptic surgery and the
discovery of anæsthetics have alone made this possible.


DISCOVERY OF ANÆSTHETICS.

The Chinese have a drug named Mago, by which they have been able, so
they maintain, to destroy pain for thousands of years past. The vapour
of hemp seed and the drug mandragora have for ages been employed for
anæsthetic purposes previous to surgical operations. In Homer’s time
the properties of opium were well understood, and other narcotic drugs
were used for the same purpose. Patients were also sometimes stupefied
by strong drink, and among some savage tribes banana wine was copiously
administered so as to intoxicate the patient. It was not, however,
until the discovery of the true anæsthesia produced by sulphuric ether
and chloroform that grave surgical operations could be performed
without causing pain to the patient. Nitrous oxide gas, discovered by
Priestley in 1776, was recommended as an anæsthetic by Davy in 1800,
and its use was begun in America by Wells, the dentist, in 1844. The
discovery that by inhaling ether the patient is rendered unconscious
of pain is due to Dr. C. T. Jackson, of Boston, U.S. Mr. T. Morton,
of the same city, first introduced it into surgical practice in 1846.
Chloroform was discovered by Souberain in 1831, and independently by
Liebig in 1832. Dumas determined its composition in 1834. JACOB BELL
in London, and Dr. SIMPSON in Edinburgh, first applied chloroform
experimentally. The late Professor James Miller thus describes the
discovery of the anæsthetic effects of chloroform:[1035] “The trial
proceeded, and the safety as well as suitableness of anæsthesia, by
ether, became more and more established. But a new phase was at hand.
My friend, Dr. Simpson, had long felt convinced that some anæsthetic
agent existed superior to ether, and, in the end of October, 1847,
being then engaged in writing a paper on ‘Etherization in Surgery,’
he began to make experiments on himself and friends in regard to the
effects of other respirable matters—other ethers, essential oils, and
various gases; chloride of hydrocarbon, acetone, nitrate of oxide of
ethyl, benzine, the vapour of iodoform, etc. The ordinary method of
experimenting was as follows: Each ‘operator’ having been provided
with a tumbler, finger glass, saucer, or some such vessel, about a
teaspoonful of the respirable substance was put in the bottom of it,
and this again was placed in hot water, if the substance happened to
be not very volatile. Holding the mouth and nostrils over the vessel’s
orifice, inhalation was proceeded with, slowly and deliberately,
all inhaling at the same time, and each noting the effects as they
advanced. Late one evening—it was the 4th November, 1847—Dr. Simpson,
with his two friends and assistants, Drs. Keith and Matthews Duncan,
sat down to their somewhat hazardous work in Dr. Simpson’s dining-room.
Having inhaled several substances, but without much effect, it occurred
to Dr. Simpson to try a ponderous material, which he had formerly
set aside on a lumber-table, and which, on account of its great
weight, he had hitherto regarded as of no likelihood whatever. That
happened to be a small bottle of chloroform. It was searched for, and
recovered from beneath a heap of waste paper. And, with each tumbler
newly charged, the inhalers resumed their vocation. Immediately an
unwonted hilarity seized the party; they became bright-eyed, very
happy, and very loquacious—expatiating on the delicious aroma of the
new fluid. The conversation was of unusual intelligence, and quite
charmed the listeners—some ladies of the family, and a naval officer,
brother-in-law of Dr. Simpson. But suddenly there was a talk of
sounds being heard like those of a cotton-mill, louder and louder; a
moment more, then all was quiet, and then a crash. On awaking, Dr.
Simpson’s first perception was mental. ‘This is far stronger and better
than ether,’ said he to himself. His second was to note that he was
prostrate on the floor, and that among the friends about him there
was both confusion and alarm.” Each of the investigators related his
experience of the new drug, and the experiments were repeated, always,
however, on this first occasion, stopping short of unconsciousness.
They were all convinced that the new agent had full anæsthetic power
when pushed. Thus was it satisfactorily proved that chloroform was
something much better than ether. Dr. Simpson continued to pursue his
experiments upon himself until he had perfected the method he had so
happily discovered.

A curious incident connected with anæsthesia is mentioned by Dr. Paris
in his well-known work _Pharmacologia_.[1036] He relates an anecdote
which he heard from the poet Coleridge, which illustrates the curative
influence of the imagination.

“As soon as the powers of nitrous oxide were discovered, Dr. Beddoes at
once concluded that it must necessarily be a specific for paralysis;
a patient was selected for the trial, and the management of it was
intrusted to Sir Humphry Davy. Previous to the administration of the
gas, he inserted a small pocket thermometer under the tongue of the
patient, as he was accustomed to do upon such occasions, to ascertain
the degree of animal temperature, with a view to future comparison.
The paralytic man, wholly ignorant of the nature of the process to
which he was to submit, but deeply impressed, from the representation
of Dr. Beddoes, with the certainty of its success, no sooner felt
the thermometer under his tongue than he concluded the _talisman_
was in full operation, and in a burst of enthusiasm declared that he
already experienced the effect of its benign influence throughout his
whole body. The opportunity was too tempting to be lost; Davy cast an
intelligent glance at Coleridge, and desired his patient to renew his
visit on the following day, when the same ceremony was performed, and
repeated every succeeding day for a fortnight, the patient gradually
improving during that period, when he was dismissed as cured, no other
application having been used.”


MEDICAL LITERATURE.

The greatest historians of medicine are the Germans. Especially
valuable are the works of—

KURT P. J. SPRENGEL (1766-1833), of Pomerania, professor of medicine at
Halle. He was a great botanist, but his immortal work on the History of
Medicine eclipsed all his other labours for medical science.

HEINRICH HAESER (1811-1885), the author of the learned _Lehrbuch der
Geschichte der Medicin und der Epidemischen Krankheiten_, which is one
of the most popular works of this class.

DR. JOH. HERMANN BAAS, who is the author of the valuable and
encyclopædic _Grundriss der Geschichte der Medicin_, excellently
translated into English by Dr. H. E. Handerson, of Cleveland, Ohio
(1889).

DR. THEO. PUSCHMANN’S _History of Medical Education_ has recently been
translated into English by Mr. E. H. Hare (1891).

Amongst those of our own countrymen who have rendered great services to
medical literature are—

SIR CHARLES HASTINGS (1794-1866), the founder of the British Medical
Association.

SIR CHARLES SCUDAMORE (1779-1849), one of the greatest authorities on
gout, who popularised Hydro-therapeutics by his writings.

SIR JOHN FORBES (1787-1861), founder of the Sydenham Society.

SIR RICHARD QUAIN, M.D., editor of the Dictionary of Medicine which
bears his name.

MR. ERNEST HART (born 1836), editor (since 1866) of the _British
Medical Journal_, which, by his great literary ability and scientific
knowledge, has become the chief agent in the advancement of the
British Medical Association to its present proud position amongst the
scientific societies of the empire. Mr. Hart has rendered great public
services in improving the condition of the sick poor in workhouses,
and the creation of the metropolitan asylums. Mr. Hart’s labours in
connection with many questions of social and sanitary progress have
been pre-eminently crowned with success.


NURSING REFORM.

When the nineteenth century had run half its course, FLORENCE
NIGHTINGALE (born 1820) was providentially raised up to reform the
working of hospitals, schools, and reformatory institutions, after
the mismanagement of our military hospitals in the Crimea had led to
terrible suffering amongst our wounded soldiers. Her noble devotion
and self-sacrifice amongst the troops earned her the blessing of the
nation, and her name will for ever be gratefully remembered in all
questions connected with hospital reform and the improvement of nursing.

MRS. WARDROPER (died 1892), the exterminator of Mrs. Gamp and her
sisterhood, made her mark in the Crimean War, and put her finger on
some of the most flagrant abuses of the nursing system of the day. She
was the first superintendent of the Nightingale School of Nursing, and
the original trainer of technically educated nurses for hospitals and
infirmaries.


THE TREATMENT OF INSANITY.

It is customary to divide the treatment of the insane into three
periods—the barbaric, humane, and remedial. We must not, however,
suppose that in ancient times the treatment was everywhere barbaric,
and that only in recent times has it become humane and remedial;
nothing could be further from the truth. The treatment of persons
mentally afflicted in ancient Egypt and in Greece was not only humane,
but was probably remedial. In the temples of Saturn in Egypt, and in
the Asclepia of Greece, which were resorted to by lunatics, Dr. J. B.
Tuke thinks[1037] the treatment was identical in principle with that of
the present day. He praises the sound principles on which Hippocrates
and Galen treated insane patients, and there is no doubt that it was
directed towards a cure. With these exceptions little is known as to
the treatment of the insane before the advent of Christianity. The
earliest recorded case of the administration of medicine to an insane
patient is that in which Melampus was the physician, and the neglect
of the worship of Bacchus the cause of the malady. As Mr. Burdett well
remarks,[1038] nowadays the worship of Bacchus is responsible for
much of the insanity which exists. From several accounts in the Greek
poets we may assume that insanity prevailed in classic times in the
forms with which we are now familiar. Hippocrates adopted a peculiar
treatment in cases of suicidal mania. “Give the patient a draught made
from the root of mandrake, in a smaller dose than will induce mania.”
He remarks that although the general rule of treatment be “contraria
contrariis curantur,” the opposite rule also holds good in some cases,
namely, “similia similibus curantur.” It is evident therefore that in
some degree the Father of Medicine was in accord with Homœopathy.[1039]

Whatever may have been the practice of the ancients, it is certain that
in the Middle Ages the treatment of lunatics, up to the middle of the
last century, was simply disgraceful. Little or no effort was made to
cure or even to take proper care of the mentally afflicted. Some few
were lodged in monastic houses, many in the common jails. In 1537 a
house in Bishopsgate Street came into the possession of the Corporation
of London, and was used to confine fifty lunatics. This was the first
Bethlehem Hospital; it was removed in 1675 to Moorfields, and in 1814
the present hospital was built in St. George’s Fields. St. Luke’s was
instituted in 1751.[1040] Many lunatics were executed as criminals
or witches. It was not till the efforts of Pinel, Tuke, and Conolly
were directed to the proper care and treatment of the insane that the
barbarous period of European practice in regard to lunacy was happily
ended.

Mr. Bennett says:[1041] “The Germans seem to have excelled all other
nations in the ingenuity of the torture which they sought to inflict
upon their patients. Some of them advocated the use of machinery, by
which a patient, on first entering an asylum, was to be first drawn
with frightful clangour over a metal bridge across a moat, and then to
be suddenly raised to the top of a tower, and as suddenly lowered into
a dark and subterraneous cavern. These practitioners avowed, according
to Conolly, that if a patient could be lowered so as to alight among
snakes and serpents, it would be better still.” “One humane doctor
invented an excruciating form of torture in the shape of a pump, worked
by four men, which projected a stream of water with great force down
the spine of the patient, who was firmly fixed in a bath made for
this apparatus.” Patients were taken to a bath in the ordinary way
and allowed to bathe, but the bath had a bottom which gave way under
their weight and plunged them into “the bath of surprise” underneath.
Dr. Darwin is credited with having invented “the circulating swing”
for lunatics; it was worked by a windlass, and was capable of being
revolved a hundred times a minute. Esquirol approves this horrible
instrument of torture, and speaks of it as having passed from the arts
into medicine. Terror, cold water, shower baths, horrible noises,
smells, darkness, were employed by the faculty in the treatment of
insanity up to the beginning of the nineteenth century. The leaders of
the French Revolution added starvation to the treatment. In England,
in 1846, the diet in some of the licensed houses was starvation fare.
Cruelty was identical in form in all the countries of Europe. Esquirol,
in 1818, said the insane were either naked or in rags, no bedding was
allowed but a little straw, the stone cells were dark and damp, and
the wretched patients were chained in caves not good enough for wild
beasts. They wore iron collars and belts, and had no medical treatment
but baths of surprise and occasional floggings. Even up to 1850 this
state of things still existed in England.

In England, in 1820, one of the great sights of London was Bedlam. The
keepers were allowed to add to their income by exhibiting the patients
at one penny or twopence per head.

Doubtless the chief reason of the neglect and cruelty to which
lunatics were thus subjected in Christian Europe, so long fruitful
in all other works of mercy, was the theory of possession by an evil
spirit; conjurations and exorcisms were considered the only safe and
efficacious methods of expelling the demons. This grievous blunder is
one of many illustrations which might be given of the necessity of
making an accurate diagnosis before attempting to treat disease. Dr.
Baas says[1042] that lunatic asylums were established first at Feltre
in Italy. The next were those of Seville, established in 1409; Padua,
1410; Saragossa, 1425; Toledo, 1483; Fez, 1492.

Burton, in his _Anatomy of Melancholy_, thus describes Lycanthropy,
“which Avicenna calls _cucubuth_, others _lupinam insaniam_, or
wolf-madness, when men run howling about graves and fields in the
night, and will not be persuaded but that they are wolves or some
such beasts. _Ætius_ (lib. 6, cap. 11) and _Paulus_ (lib. 3, cap.
16) call it a kind of _melancholy_; but I should rather refer it to
_madness_, as most do. Some make a doubt of it, whether there be any
such disease. _Donat. ab Altomari_ (cap. 9, Art. Med.) saith, that he
saw two of them in his time. _Wierus_ (De Præstiv. Demonum, l. 3, cap.
21) tells a story of such a one at Padua, 1541, that would not believe
to the contrary but that he was a wolf. He hath another instance of a
Spaniard who thought himself a bear. _Forestus_ (Observat. lib. 10, de
Morbis Cerebri, c. 15) confirms as much by many examples; one among the
rest, of which he was an eye-witness, at Alcmaer, in Holland. A poor
husbandman that still hunted about graves, and kept in churchyards,
of a pale, black, ugly, and fearful look. Such belike, or little
better, were King Prœtus’ daughters (_Hippocrates_, lib. de insaniâ),
that thought themselves kine; and Nebuchadnezzar, in Daniel, as some
interpreters hold, was only troubled with this kind of madness. This
disease, perhaps, gave occasion to that bold assertion of Pliny (lib.
8, cap. 22, homines interdum lupos fieri; et contra), _some men were
turned into wolves in his time, and from wolves to men again_: and
to that fable of Pausanias, of a man that was ten years a wolf, and
afterwards turned to his former shape; to Ovid’s (Met. lib. 1) tale
of Lycaon, etc. He that is desirous to hear of this disease, or more
examples, let him read _Austin_ in his eighteenth book, _de Civitate
Dei_, cap. 5,” etc., etc.




CHAPTER III.

THE GERM THEORY OF DISEASE.

 The Disease-Demon reappears as a Germ.—Phagocytes.—Ptomaines.—Lister’s
 Antiseptic Surgery.—Sanitary Science or
 Hygiene.—Bacteriologists.—Faith Cures.—Experimental Physiology and the
 Latest System of Medicine.


Soon after the discovery of the microscope, men began to seek for
the causes of diseases in the infinitely little. ATHANASIUS KIRCHER
(1598-1680), a Jesuit priest of Fulda, seems to have been gifted
with the ability to foresee three of our greatest modern scientific
discoveries. He anticipated Darwin’s dictum that life is maintained
by struggle and counter-struggle. He described hypnotism in certain
animals, and detected, as he thought, micro-organisms with the
microscope, then in its infancy, in the blood and pus of patients
suffering with the plague and other infectious diseases, which
“worms,” as he termed the corpuscles, he considered to be the cause
of the disease. His instrument had enabled him to discover that all
decomposing substances swarmed with low forms of life. His theory,
however, gained little credence at the time.[1043] Next ANTONY VAN
LEEUWENHOEK, “the father of microscopy,” in 1675 published his
researches in a series of letters to the Royal Society, in which he
described minute organisms in waters, vegetable infusions, saliva, and
in scrapings from the teeth, and he was able to differentiate these
special forms of life. Some of his descriptions are so graphic that
microscopists can almost recognise these forms as bacteria with which
we are now familiar. Physicians still designating these as “worms”
began to attribute to their influence various diseases.

In 1701 NICHOLAS ANDRY wrote on this subject a treatise entitled _De
la Génération des Vers dans le Corps de l’Homme_. The germ theory of
putrefaction and fermentation originated with Andry; he maintained
that air, water, vinegar, fermenting wine, old beer, and sour milk
contained myriads of germs; he detected these in the blood and pustules
of small-pox, and believed that they could be found in other maladies.
His views met with general acceptance, and curiously enough it was
believed—and has since been verified by our own observation—that
mercurial preparations were fatal to such disease germs.[1044]
LANCISI in 1718 attributed the unhealthy effects of malarial air to
animalcules, and “inconceivable worms” met with as much ridicule in
Paris in 1726 as the “microbe” has been received with to-day. Linnæus
out of all this chaos thought order might possibly be evolved; he
believed that the actual contagion of certain eruptive diseases might
be discovered in these small living beings.

MARCUS ANTONIUS PLENCIZ in 1762 discussed the relation of animalcules
to putrefaction and disease in his works.[1045]

Notwithstanding all these clear indications, which, if followed up,
would have been fertile in result, the germ theory of disease fell
almost into oblivion. OTTO MÜLLER in 1786 began a more systematic study
of the life history of various micro-organisms, and thus advanced the
science of minute forms of life. The question arose, How do these forms
originate? Dr. Needham was the first to suggest the theory of their
spontaneous generation. Bonnet, of Geneva, disputed the results of Dr.
Needham’s experiments, and Spallanzani demonstrated by experiment the
correctness of Bonnet’s criticism.

FRANCIS SCHULZE in 1836, by a carefully devised experiment, struck
another blow at Needham’s theory of spontaneous generation. In 1837
SCHWANN convinced himself that the cause of decomposition must exist in
the air. SCHROEDER and VAN DUSCH in 1854 proved that filtration of the
air through cotton-wool was effectual in excluding germs. Then HOFFMAN
in 1860, and CHEVREUIL and PASTEUR working independently in 1861,
showed that a sterile solution could be kept sterile if the neck of
the vessel were bent in the form of an S, so that the micro-organisms
in the air entering the neck of the flask, would be deposited by
gravitation in the curve.

But the advocates of the theory of spontaneous generation were not yet
satisfied. They objected that by the boiling of the infusions, etc.,
under examination they lost the ability to become decomposed; but it
was shown that the admission of unfiltered air set up decomposition.
PASTEUR, BURDON SANDERSON, and LISTER next showed that blood, urine,
and milk would not decompose if proper precautions were taken to avoid
contamination. In 1872 CHARLTON BASTIAN endeavoured to rehabilitate the
spontaneous generation theory, but TYNDALL effectually disposed of his
contentions. It is settled that bacteria, or microbes, as these germs
are now called, when once destroyed by heat and by certain chemical
agents in any medium, cannot be resuscitated, and that Harvey’s axiom,
_omne vivum ex ovo_, applies to all forms of organisms. As DR. SIMS
WOODHEAD has said[1046] concerning the battle between the advocates and
opponents of the spontaneous generation theory:—

“The triumphs of surgery, of preventive inoculation of hygiene
in relation to specific infective diseases, of preservation of
food, have had their origin in the knowledge gained during the
battle which waged round the question of spontaneous generation or
_generatio æquivoca_; and to the disciples of that school every
acknowledgment must be made and due credit assigned for the attitude
of scepticism, and free, ingenious, and honest criticism which they
passed concerning half-formed and inadequately-supported theories and
imperfectly-conducted experiments, for to their efforts is certainly
due the fact that the experiments of their opponents became more and
more perfect, and if to-day we have perfect methods of sterilization
and of making pure cultivations, it is because nothing was taken for
granted, and because able men on both sides of the controversy were
ranged against one another to fight the matter to the death.”

Another question which had to be determined was whether these
organisms were of the animal or vegetable kingdom. EHRENBERG came to
the conclusion that in consequence of snake-like and rotary movements
of certain micro-organisms they were animals; and this opinion held
its ground till DAVAINE decided that bacteria must be considered as
belonging to the vegetable kingdom. Up to 1852 the animal theory was
unshaken; in 1854 COHN demonstrated the plant nature of bacteria.

In 1857 NAEGELI made a group of all the forms of lesser minute
organisms, and termed it Schizomycetes, or fission fungi. The
connection between micro-organisms and disease was the subject of
research also in another direction. The discovery by LATUM and SCHWANN
in 1837, that the yeast plant is a living organism, and the true cause
of fermentation, threw great light on the whole inquiry. Many observers
had long recognised the likeness of certain diseases to fermentation
processes, and it gradually became the opinion that such diseases were
similarly produced. In 1837 BASSI discovered that the silk-worm disease
was due to microscopic spores on the bodies of sick worms, and that
healthy worms became diseased when these spores were conveyed to them.
HENLE in 1840 declared that all contagious diseases must be caused by
the growth of something of a living nature, although he had searched
in vain for the living contagion of small-pox and scarlet fever.
When fungi were found to be the cause of favus, herpes tonsurans, and
pityriasis versicolor, the theory received a still greater impetus.
SWAINE, BRITTAN, and BUDD found micro-organisms in connection with
cholera. In 1857 PASTEUR demonstrated that lactic, acetic, and butyric
fermentations were produced by micro-organisms.[1047] In 1863 DAVAINE
came to the conclusion that the disease known as splenic fever is
caused by an organised being which kills the animal by multiplying
in its blood, and so changing its nature, after the manner of a
fermentation process. PASTEUR next took up the investigation of
silk-worm disease, and was ultimately able to confirm the opinion that
the disease was due to micro-organisms, and to devise a remedy for it.

ROBERT KOCH in 1877 described the life-history of the bacillus of
anthrax or splenic fever. PASTEUR also devoted much attention to the
same subject, and confirmed the observations of Koch. PAUL BERT,
on the other hand, argued that the bacilli were of no importance.
Ultimately he was convinced of his error by Pasteur; it was, however,
says PROFESSOR CRUIKSHANK,[1048] “principally the researches of Koch
which placed the doctrine of contagium vivum on a scientific basis.
Koch elevated the theory of contagium vivum to a demonstrated and
established fact.”

The whole matter is beset with fallacies. Because certain bacteria have
been discovered in the blood of animals suffering from a particular
disease, it must not be rashly concluded that these bacteria are
always its cause, they may be in some cases only its effects. At the
present time the nature of the contagion in many diseases, such as
hydrophobia, variola, vaccinia, scarlet fever, and measles, has not
been discovered. The comma-bacillus is associated with cholera in
some mysterious manner, yet experimenters have swallowed myriads of
comma-bacilli, and have remained never the worse. Although Pasteur’s
prophylactic treatment against hydrophobia is based upon the theory
that a micro-organism is the cause of the disease, Pasteur has never
yet discovered the bacterium of hydrophobia, yet there would seem to
be one. DR. SIMS WOODHEAD says:[1049] “It is a most remarkable fact
that although no micro-organisms can be found in the virus, filtration
through the Pasteur filter keeps back the effective part of the virus,
whilst heating to 100°C. destroys the activity of the virus.”

The disease-demon has now reappeared in the form of a germ.


THE PHAGOCYTE THEORY.

Some thirty-six diseases, many of which are amongst the most terrible
which afflict men and animals, are attributed by bacteriologists to
micro-organisms.[1050] It is sufficiently alarming to reflect that
enemies which can only be detected by a specialist armed with a
powerful microscope are everywhere around us, waiting to attack us in a
favourable spot, and slay us without hope of escape.

Yet the germ-theorists have not left us entirely without hope. One
of Pasteur’s most distinguished pupils, M. METSCHNIKOFF, offers us
salvation through faith in his phagocytes. The white blood corpuscles
are for ever on the watch for the incursions of disease germs.
These they instantly arrest and imprison by taking them into their
own substance, digesting and converting them to their own uses.
Whenever there is an extra demand for the services of these admirable
blood-police, a large number are attracted to the point where the
burglarious and murderous enemy has entrenched himself; and if the
system is in a position to maintain a sufficient force of these
guardians of health, the enemy is rapidly digested, and the effete
products are expelled by the regular physiological channels.

It has been found that men and animals may be insusceptible to an
infective disease by natural immunity. Not all persons subjected to
exposure to epidemic diseases contract them. Ordinary sheep readily
succumb to anthrax, but Algerian sheep resist any but large doses of
the virus.[1051] Acquired immunity is that by which one attack, say of
measles or of small-pox, protects against a second. Acclimatization
also affords immunity. Pasteur, in his researches on fowl cholera,
noticed that in non-fatal cases the disease did not recur. This set
him to work out a theory of attenuated inoculations which should
afford protection by giving the disease in a mild form in cultivations
of the micro-organism. Pasteur next endeavoured to protect animals
against anthrax by inoculating them with a mitigated virus. His
results were criticised and his researches opposed by Koch, who
came to the conclusion that the process did not admit of practical
application, chiefly because the immunity would only last a year, and
on account of the danger of disseminating a vaccine of the necessary
strength.[1052] The theory of protective inoculation in hydrophobia
has been much discussed. Pasteur’s explanation does not entirely
satisfy some experts. Dr. Sims Woodhead gives the following: “I am
inclined to think that the explanation advanced by Wood and myself,
that the treatment consists essentially in causing the tissues to
acquire a tolerance before the microbe has had time to develop, is
more in accordance with the facts. The tissue cells are acted upon by
increasingly active virus, each step of which acclimatizes the cells
for the next stronger virus, until at length, when the virus formed by
the micro-organisms introduced at the time of the bite comes to exert
its action, the tissues have been so far altered or acclimatized that
they can continue their work undisturbed in its presence; and treating
the micro-organisms themselves as foreign bodies, destroy them. When
the cells are _suddenly_ attacked by a _strong dose_ of the poison
of this virus, they are so paralysed that the micro-organisms can
continue to carry on their poison-manufacturing process without let or
hindrance; but when the cells are gradually, though rapidly, accustomed
to the presence of the poison by the exhibition of constantly
increasing doses, they can carry on their scavenging work even in its
presence, and the micro-organisms are destroyed, possibly even before
they can exert their full poison-manufacturing powers.”[1053]


PTOMAINES.

The germ theory has thrown great light upon the subject of certain
mysterious organic poisoning processes, which long puzzled analysts
and physicians. Diseased meat, fish, cheese, and other articles of
food frequently cause symptoms of poisoning in those who have partaken
of them. The analyst failed to detect the precise agent which caused
the mischief, and it was not till the bacteriologists investigated
the subject that it was satisfactorily explained. In 1814, BURROWS
described a poisonous substance in decaying fish. In 1820, KERNER
described a poisonous alkaloid which he discovered in sausages. In
1856, PANUM isolated a poison from some decomposing animal matter.
ZUELZA and SONNENSCHEIN from the same substance obtained a poison which
closely resembled atropine in its physiological action. SELMI between
1871 and 1880 described substances which he called cadaveric alkaloids
or ptomaines. Pasteur and others, working in the same direction, have
greatly advanced our knowledge of these deadly agents. Bacteria are now
known to have the power to build up deadly substances as they grow in
dead or living animal tissues, just as plants build up poisons in their
own tissues; these substances exert a deadly influence on the nerve
centres, and hence a cheese bacillus may be as dangerous to human life
as a dose of aconite.


LISTER’S ANTISEPTIC SURGERY.

What is commonly known as “Listerism” is a development of the germ
theory of disease, which has revolutionised the art of surgery by its
direct and indirect influence. Pus formation, the result of destructive
processes which prevent the healing of wounds, was discovered to be
due to the action of germs falling from the atmosphere on the injured
flesh. LISTER sought to destroy these germs by powerful disinfectants.
This was the first step in the antiseptic treatment. When carbolic-acid
lotions were applied for this purpose, LISTER discovered that the wound
healed rapidly. He believed that he had destroyed the micro-organisms
by the carbolic-acid lotions. But LISTER improved on this process, and
seeing how difficult it is to destroy the germs when they have once
entered the tissues, he invented a method whereby they were prevented
from gaining admission at all. He fought the micro-organisms in the
atmosphere of the operating room, in the dressings, instruments, and
hands of the operator, and thus gradually built up his system of
absolute surgical cleanliness called antiseptic surgery. Even those
surgeons who rejected his method in its entirety, and declined to adopt
his complicated system of dressings, devoted so much attention to the
minutest cleanliness, that they achieved results not less successful
than those of the inventor of the antiseptic system itself.


SANITARY SCIENCE.

Hygiene, the art of preserving health, has always been recognised
as a branch of medical science, not less important than that which
concerns itself with the cure of disease. MOSES (B.C. 1490) enjoined
the strictest cleanliness, and anticipated our modern sanitary laws.
HIPPOCRATES embodied in his works treatises on hygiene, which existed
in Greece probably long anterior to his time. The value of attention
to rules of diet and exercise was recognised by HERODICUS, one of
his preceptors, who introduced a system of medicinal gymnastics for
the improvement of the health and the cure of disease. Such rules
must to a greater or less extent have always been in force in any
well-constituted army. Gymnasts, athletes, and others must have been
fully aware of the necessity for attending to such rules. Hippocrates,
in his treatise _Airs, Waters, and Places_, has insisted on the duty
of the physician to study the effects of the seasons, the winds, the
position of cities, and the diseases which are endemic and epidemic
in them, the qualities of waters, and their effects on public health,
and so forth. Had men taken up the study of Hygiene where Hippocrates
left off, we should not have heard of the plagues, pestilences,
and epidemics which up to modern times periodically devastated the
civilized world.


HYGIENE.

Mr. PARKES, in the introduction to his _Manual of Practical Hygiene_,
defines hygiene in its largest sense to signify “rules for perfect
culture of mind and body.” The two are not to be dissociated. Every
mental and moral action influences the body; the physical conditions
equally re-act upon the mind. He admirably says: “For a perfect
system of hygiene we must combine the knowledge of the physician,
the schoolmaster, and the priest, and must train the body, the
intellect, and the moral soul in a perfect and balanced order. Then,
if our knowledge were exact, and our means of application adequate,
we should see the human being in his perfect beauty, as Providence,
perhaps, intended him to be; in the harmonious proportion and complete
balance of all parts in which he came out of his Maker’s hands, in
whose divine image, we are told, he was in the beginning made.” Mr.
Parkes asks if such a system is possible? He replies that we can even
now literally choose between health and disease. There are certain
hereditary conditions which we may not be able to avoid, and men may
hinder our acquisition of the boon; but as a race man holds his own
destiny in his hands, and can choose the good and reject the evil. Exit
the disease-demon! Fevers and other epidemic diseases are no longer
attributed to the anger of the Supreme Being; they may be prevented.
If we use the words scourge, plague, visitation, and the like, it
is merely because we recognise that Nature can take offence at our
violation of her laws, and visit us with the penalty.

One of the most important events of our time was the establishment of
the Registrar-General’s office in 1838. To DR. WILLIAM FARR we owe a
nation’s gratitude for the admirable manner in which he performed the
duties of his office. The Government Inquiry into the Health of Towns
and of the Country generally, undertaken by EDWIN CHADWICK, SOUTHWOOD
SMITH, NEIL ARNOTT, SUTHERLAND, GUY, TOYNBEE, and others, was of
immense importance to the national health. The medical officer to the
Privy Council, SIMON, carried on the work thus ably commenced with the
greatest vigour; and the consequence of the important departure was
that medical officers of health were appointed to the different towns
and parishes.

Various public health acts have followed from time to time, and it has
been found, in the words of Mr. Parkes, that “nothing is so costly in
all ways as disease, and that nothing is so remunerative as the outlay
which augments health, and in doing so, augments the amount and value
of the work done.”

It is a reproach frequently brought against medicine that it makes
little advance. Some have even said that in some respects we are no
better off than if we lived in the days of Hippocrates. However this
may be, we may be justly proud of the splendid work which hygienic
medicine has performed, and we have every reason to look hopefully
forward to the benefits this branch of medical science will confer upon
us in the near future. Hygiene is the outcome of physiology. Until we
knew the laws of life, it was impossible that hygiene should have a
scientific basis; and henceforth physiology and hygiene will go hand in
hand.[1054]

JOHN SIMON, C.B., F.R.S. (born 1816), the eminent physiologist,
pathologist, and surgeon, became the first appointed officer of health
to the City of London. He was for some time medical adviser to the
Privy Council. He rendered the greatest services to the health of the
nation by his reports and official papers on sanitary matters.

EDMUND A. PARKES (1819-1876) was the great sanitary reformer whose name
is gratefully enshrined in the “Parkes Museum of Hygiene,” instituted
in 1876, of University College, London.

LUDWIG J. P. SEMMELWEIS (1818-1865), “the Father of Antiseptic
Midwifery,” was professor in Pesth, and has earned the gratitude of
his profession and of the whole world by demonstrating that puerperal
fever was due to inoculation, that the poison which caused it was
introduced by organic matter below the nails and epidermis of the
students and doctors who had been engaged in anatomical or pathological
work and had not taken sufficient pains to disinfect and purify their
hands. He recommended careful washing with chlorine water before each
examination; the consequence of which was, that the mortality among
lying-in women fell in two months from twelve to three per cent. He
anticipated the methods of Lister, and died in a lunatic asylum, galled
by the attacks which his doctrines experienced.[1055] Sir Andrew
Clark said:[1056] “There are few such parallels in the history of
science, in regard to his tremendous moral heroism; in spite of every
conceivable difficulty, in positions of misrepresentation, in spite
of persecution, he continued his labours, until crowned with a full
clearing up of the difficulties. As to his martyrdom, there is not such
a history. The persecution to which he was exposed in the later years
of his stay in Vienna, his being hounded out of Vienna and settling in
Budapest, and his premature end in loss of reason, form indeed a sad
story, and one of the highest examples that can be presented.”


BACTERIOLOGISTS AND OTHER SCIENTISTS.

BENJAMIN W. RICHARDSON, M.D., F.R.S., etc. (born 1828). In 1865 he
made important researches on the nature of the poisons of contagious
diseases and discovered _septine_. In 1866 he discovered the use of
the ether spray for locally abolishing pain in surgical operations. He
introduced bichloride of methylene as an anæsthetic, and discovered the
influence of nitrite of amyl over tetanus, angina pectoris, etc. He
invented the _lethal chamber_ for killing animals without pain, and has
made many most important researches on the action of alcohol on man. In
1875 he gave a sketch of a “Model City of Health,” to be called Hygeia,
which awakened much interest and discussion.

JOHN BURDON SANDERSON, M.D. (born 1828), Professor of Physiology at
Oxford, made investigations respecting the cattle plague, 1865-66.
In 1883 he sat on the Royal Commission on Hospitals for infectious
diseases, and has made elaborate researches on animal and plant
electricity, and on the nature of contagion.

ROBERT KOCH (born 1843), the eminent bacteriologist, the discoverer of
the “comma” bacillus, and the tubercle bacillus, is Professor of the
Institute of Hygiene in Berlin.

JOHN TYNDALL, F.R.S. (born 1820), is one of the foremost of the
scientific explorers of the century. Besides his researches in relation
to magnetism, radiant heat, heat as a mode of motion, light, etc.,
Professor Tyndall has rendered very important services to medicine
by his studies on _The Floating Matter of the Air in Relation to
Putrification and Infection_, 1881.

LOUIS PASTEUR (born 1822), chemist, is celebrated for his researches
relative to the polarization of light, and for his investigations on
fermentation, the preservation of wines, and the propagation of zymotic
diseases in silkworms and domestic animals. Pasteur’s most important
work for medicine was the demonstration of the existence of the germs
which cause putrefaction.

The Minister of Public Instruction, addressing M. Pasteur on the
occasion of his seventieth birthday, summed up what is known as
Pasteurism in the following words: “Henceforward the formula is
definitive and complete. Your disciples give it in two words—ferments
and virus are living beings; vaccine is an attenuated virus, the basis
of medicine is the artificial attenuation of virus, and thus the
microbic treatment is founded.”

Pasteur’s later work has been chiefly in connection with the attempt to
discover a prophylactic for hydrophobia.

LIONEL S. BEALE, F.R.S. (born 1828), physiologist and pathological
anatomist, is a celebrated microscopist, author of _The Microscope in
its Application to Practical Medicine_; _Disease Germs, their Supposed
and Real Nature, and on the Treatment of Diseases caused by their
Presence_; and many other works of equal importance to medical science.

WILLIAM B. CARPENTER (1812-1885) was a celebrated physiologist, whose
great work has done more to popularise the study of physiology amongst
non-professional, as well as medical readers, than any other, except
that of Professor Huxley, which followed it.

Amongst other scientific workers of the century may be mentioned
PURKINJE, who rediscovered and described the bone corpuscles,
contributed greatly to the study of microscopical anatomy and
ophthalmology by his experiments with the ophthalmoscope.

R. WAGNER (1805-1864) in 1861 called an anthropological congress, which
was attended by several distinguished anatomists, and thus originated
the “Anthropological Congress.”

PANDER (1794-1865) and BAER (1792-1876) made important researches in
the history of development. To Baer is due the splendid discovery of
the mammalian ovum.

FRANÇOIS MAGENDIE (1782-1855) was the first to introduce the
experimental method into pathology and pharmacology. His investigations
in what are called pharmaco-dynamics, chiefly connected with the
alkaloids, introduced many of these powerful remedies into medical
practice. He admitted a vital principle in nervous activity, but for
the rest endeavoured to reduce medicine to mere physiological and
chemical laws.


MIRACLES OF HEALING, FAITH CURES, MIND CURES, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
HEALING, ETC., ETC.

There are many things connected with the healing art on which the
public mind is better informed than the recognised authorities on
medicine. Mesmerism is now accepted by the faculty under the name
of hypnotism, and the miracles of healing wrought at the shrines of
saints, long the objects of scorn and contempt at the hands of the
medical profession, are now declared to be well within the domain
of scientific fact. The miracles of Lourdes, the faith cures at
Bethshan, and similar phenomena, having been subjected to the strictest
investigation by the most competent medical authorities, are proved to
be not impostures and delusions, but simple matters of fact. Science
having reluctantly accepted the faith-cure, now declares it to be “an
ideal method, since it often attains its end when all other means have
failed.”[1057]

Professor Charcot, while declaring that the faith-cure is entirely of a
scientific order, insists that its domain is limited; “to produce its
effects it must be applied to those cases which demand for their cure
no intervention beyond the power which the mind has over the body.”
That is to say, faith will cure paralysis and other disorders of motion
and sensation dependent on idea, but does not avail to restore a lost
organ or an amputated limb.

Professor Charcot believes also that the faith-cure may cause ulcers
and tumours to disappear, if such lesions be of the same nature as the
paralysis cured by the same means. In all this there is no miracle.
The diseases are all of hysterical origin, according to this eminent
authority, and being purely dynamic, and not organic, the mind has
power to influence and cure them. The mind of the invalid becomes
possessed of the overpowering idea that a cure is to be effected, and
it is so.

M. Littré has explained for us how this happens.[1058] The mind, which
is most eminently receptive of suggestion, will be the most likely to
be influential in curing the body in which it is enshrined, by the
powerful force of auto-suggestion.[1059]

In expressing this opinion, no question need arise of the efficacy
of prayer or of the intervention of the Divine power. The aim of the
physician is to understand the medical side of the subject, and science
is daily becoming more capable of offering an explanation of such
phenomena from a purely medical point of view. A curious instance of
faith-cure was recently given in a Catholic magazine.

The _Month_ for June, 1892, published an account, by the late Earl
of Denbigh, of a cure worked by a member of a family named Cancelli
on Lady Denbigh in 1850. She was suffering severely from rheumatism,
and the Pope (Pius IX.) mentioned to the Earl that near Foligno there
was a family of peasants who were credited with a miraculous power of
curing rheumatic disorders. Lord Denbigh succeeded in getting one of
the family, an old man, to come, and learned from him the legend of
the cure. The belief was that in the reign of Nero, the Apostles Peter
and Paul took refuge in the hut of an old couple named Cancelli, near
Foligno, and as a proof of gratitude, gave to the male descendants of
the family living near the spot the power of curing rheumatic disorders
to the end of time. Lord Denbigh described how the old man made a
solemn invocation, using the sign of the cross, and, in fact, Lady
Denbigh did recover at once. In a few days the pains returned, but she
made an act of resignation, and they then left her, and never returned
with any acuteness.


EXPERIMENTAL PHYSIOLOGY.

The question of vivisection, or experimental physiology, pathology,
and pharmacology, has become a burning one in England and America of
recent years. In a history of medicine so prominent a question cannot
be entirely ignored, although it would be out of place to discuss it
here at length. It has been claimed that almost all our real knowledge
of the healing art, and the most important steps of medical progress,
have been gained by experiments upon living animals. On the other hand,
it has been maintained by practical physicians and surgeons that the
method in question is not less misleading than cruel; that “the only
correct path is that of thoughtful experience.”[1060] On behalf of the
advocates of the experimental method, PROFESSOR MICHAEL FOSTER shall
state the case; that of the other side shall be given in the words of
SIR ANDREW CLARK, “the prince of physicians, and one of the noblest of
men,” under whom it was my happiness and privilege to study medicine in
the wards of the London Hospital.

PROFESSOR MICHAEL FOSTER says: “It would not be a hard task to give
chapter and verse for the assertion that the experimental method
has, especially in these later times, supplied the chief means of
progress in physiology; but it would be a long task, and we may content
ourselves with calling attention to what is in many respects a typical
case. We referred a short time back to the phenomena of ‘inhibition.’
It is not too much to say that the discovery of the inhibitory function
of certain nerves marks one of the most important steps in the progress
of physiology during the past half-century. The mere attainment of
the fact that the stimulation of a nerve might stop action instead
of inducing action constituted in itself almost a revolution; and
the value of that fact in helping us on the one hand to unravel the
tangled puzzles of physiological action and reaction, and on the other
hand to push our inquiries into the still more difficult problems of
molecular changes, has proved immense. One cannot at the present time
take up a physiological memoir covering any large extent of ground
without finding some use made of inhibitory processes for the purpose
of explaining physiological phenomena. Now, however skilfully we
may read older statements between the lines, no scientific—that is,
no exact—knowledge of inhibition was possessed by any physiologist,
until Weber, by a direct experiment on a living animal, discovered
the inhibitory influence of the pneumogastric nerve over the beating
of the heart. It was, of course, previously known that under certain
circumstances the beating of the heart might be stopped; but all ideas
as to how the stoppage was, or might be, brought about, were vague and
uncertain before Weber made his experiment. That experiment gave the
clue to an exact knowledge, and it is difficult, if not impossible, to
see how the clue could have been gained otherwise than by experiment;
other experiments have enabled us to follow up the clue, so that it
may with justice be said that all that part of the recent progress
of physiology which is due to the introduction of a knowledge of
inhibitory processes is the direct result of the experimental method.
But the story of our knowledge of inhibition is only one of the
innumerable instances of the value of this method. In almost every
department of physiology, an experiment, or a series of experiments,
has proved a turning-point at which vague, nebulous fancies were
exchanged for clear, decided knowledge, or a starting-point for the
introduction of wholly new and startling ideas.

“And we may venture to repeat, that not only must the experimental
method be continued, but the progress of physiology will chiefly depend
on the increased application of that method. The more involved and
abstruse the problems become, the more necessary does it also become
that the inquirer should be able to choose his own conditions for the
observations he desires to make. Happily, the experimental method
itself brings with it in the course of its own development the power
of removing the only valid objection to physiological experiments,
viz., that in certain cases they involve pain and suffering. For in
nearly all experiments pain and suffering are disturbing elements.
These disturbing elements the present imperfect methods are often
unable to overcome; but their removal will become a more and more
pressing necessity in the interests of the experiments themselves,
as the science becomes more exact and exacting, and will also become
a more and more easy task as the progress of the science makes the
investigator more and more master of the organism. In the physiology of
the future, pain and suffering will be admissible in an experiment only
when pain and suffering are themselves the object of inquiry. And such
an inquiry will of necessity take a subjective rather than an objective
form.”[1061]

Let the President of the Royal College of Physicians give his views
of the utility of vivisection from the point of view of a practical
physician:—

SIR ANDREW CLARK before the “Clinical Society of London” (_British
Medical Journal_, Feb. 3, 1883) said: “For whatever purpose they
may be employed; however carefully they may be designed and executed;
however successful may be the precautions taken to exclude error,
experiments have their subtle difficulties and dangers which are
perilous to truth, and cannot be wholly averted. By the prestige
of precision, which often undeservedly they profess, undue weight
is attached to their results; and by the assumption that in like
conditions the results would be the same in man as in the lower
animals, flagrant errors are committed, and currency is given to false
or inadequate generalisations. The experimenter interprets the results
of his experiments by the light of their structural results; he forgets
or he ignores the life-history of the processes by which they have
been evolved, and he takes no account of the fact, beyond controversy,
that different clinical states find occasionally the same structural
expression. In such circumstances doubt is inevitable, and it is only
to clinical medicine that any just appeal for its solution can be made.
To her, at last, all such experiments must be brought for trial; she
must be their examiner, critic, interpreter, user, and judge. And no
results of experiments can be made of any avail to medicine, or be used
with safety in her service, until they have been filtered through the
checks and counter-checks of clinical experience, and have responded
to the tests and counter-tests of clinical trial. Had these principles
exerted their just influence in the recent debates concerning questions
of this kind, we should not have had a seton in the neck of a man taken
as the parallel of a seton in the neck of a guinea-pig; we should
not have had the artificial tuberculosis of the rodent pronounced to
be identical with the natural tuberculosis of the child; we should
not have had grey tubercles and caseous pneumonias pronounced on the
grounds of mere likeness of structure to be of one and the same nature;
and we should have been spared the sight of science, drunken with
success and drivelling with prophecies, soliciting the public on the
common highway.”




APPENDIX.

_ON SOME OF THE MORE IMPORTANT MINERALS USED IN MEDICINE._

(Compiled chiefly from Royle’s _Materia Medica_.)


CARBONATE OF SODA is the _neter_ of the Hebrews. It was known to the
early Hindus, and is by them called _Sajji noon_ (_i.e._ Sajji or Soda
Salt); it is the Sagimen vitri of Geber. The Natron lakes of Egypt
were known to the ancients, and it was early employed in glass making,
etc. (Royle). On the shores of the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and the
Mediterranean, plants of the order _Chenopodeæ_ are burned to form the
ash called Barilla, and from this ash soda is obtained. Carbonate of
soda was also formerly prepared on the coasts of Scotland, Ireland,
Wales, and Normandy, by burning algæ or sea-weeds, and the ash so
obtained was called _kelp_. There is no doubt that the process is
extremely ancient, and the discovery of the properties of these ashes
accidental.

CHLORIDE OF SODIUM, or common salt, is so universally distributed that
it must have been known and used in food from the earliest ages.

BORAX is thought to have been the Chrysocolla of Pliny. It is the
_Sohaga_ of the Hindus (Sanscrit, _Tincana_), and is called _Booruk_ by
the Arabs. It is abundant on the shores of some of the lakes in Thibet,
and was brought into India across the Himalayas (Royle).

SULPHATE OF SODA, or Glauber’s Salt, is found on the soil in India and
other countries, and exists in the ashes of many plants, in mineral
springs, and in sea-water.

LIME was known to the Egyptians and Hindus.

MAGNESIA seems to have been known to the alchemists. Its name occurs
in Geber and other writers of the period. The CARBONATE OF MAGNESIA
was probably first used as a medicine by the Count de Palma at Rome.
Hoffmann introduced it into the list of Materia Medica.

EPSOM SALTS (SULPHATE OF MAGNESIA) was first discovered by Dr. Grew in
1675 in a spring at Epsom. It is found in many countries.

ALUM is mentioned in _Pliny_, xxxv. chap. 15, and probably is referred
to by _Dioscorides_ (v. chap. 122). _Shib_ was the generic term of alum
of various kinds in Arab writings. Egyptians and Hindus must have known
of its properties from the earliest ages of their civilization. It was
introduced into Europe from Syria by the Genoese.

_Green Vitriol_ or _Sulphate of Iron_ was known to the ancients. It is
mentioned, says Dr. Royle, in the _Amera Cosha_ of the Hindus (_Hind.
Med._, p. 44), and it is used by them as by the Romans in the time of
Pliny in making ink.

ZINC seems to have been first made known as a metal in Europe by
Paracelsus. The Hindus have imported it from China from remote times.
The Oxide of Zinc was anciently called tutty, probably from the Tamil
Tutanagum. In the East, says Royle, SULPHATE OF ZINC is called _suffed
tutia_, or white tutia, the Sulphates of Iron and Copper being called
_green_ and _blue tutia_ (_Hindu Med._, p. 100).

COPPER was one of the metals most anciently known. It was employed
in medicine by the Hindus and Arabs in the form of the Sulphate or
Blue-stone. VERDIGRIS, the DIACETATE OF COPPER, must have been known
wherever copper vessels were used. It was employed by the Greeks as a
medicine, by the Arabs, and probably also by the Egyptians.

LEAD was equally well known of old; the carbonate of the metal was one
of the most anciently known of the metallic salts. The Middle Ages
introduced the acetate of lead commonly known as SUGAR OF LEAD. EXTRACT
OF LEAD, or EXTRACT OF SATURN, or _Goulard’s Extract_, have been known
since the time of B. Valentine.

BISMUTH was first mentioned by Agricola in 1520.

SULPHUR was employed in medicine by the Greeks, Hindus, and Arabs.
Geber knew of its solubility in an alkaline solution, and Albertus
Magnus taught the method of procuring Sulphuret of Potassium by fusion.

PHOSPHORUS was discovered in 1669, when it was found in the Phosphate
of Soda and Ammonia of Urine by Brandt, an alchemist of Hamburgh.
Knuckel in Germany and Boyle in England had also the credit of
discovering it (Royle, _Mat. Med._).

NITRIC ACID was known to Geber, and probably also to the Hindus (Royle,
_Mat. Med._).

IODINE was obtained by M. Courtois in 1812 in the residual liquor of
the process for obtaining soda from sea-weed.

IODIDE OF POTASSIUM was first employed in medicine by Coindet.

BROMINE was discovered in 1826 by M. Balard, in _bittern_, the
uncrystallisable residue of sea-water. Bromide of Potassium was first
introduced into the London Pharmacopœia in 1836.

SAL AMMONIAC was known to Geber. Avicenna and Serapion mention it
by the name _Noshadur_. Persian writers give _Armeena_ as its Greek
synonym. The Sanskrit name is _Nuosadur_. In Egypt it is made from
camel’s dung. It must have been known to the Romans, as Pliny says that
one of the kinds of _Nitrum_ gives out a strong smell when mixed with
quicklime (Royle, _Mat. Med._).

CARBONATE OF POTASH is obtained by the burning of vegetables. It must
therefore have been known to primitive nations. “Dioscorides describes
it by the name τεφρα κληματινης, or _Cinis sarmentorum_, ashes of vine
twigs (‘cineris lixivium,’ _Pliny_, xxxviii. chap. 51). The Arabs are
usually supposed to have been the first to make known this alkali
(al-_kali_); but the Hindus, in works from which the Arabs copied, made
use of the ashes of plants” (Royle, _Mat. Med._).

TIN was the Bedel of Moses. It was used by the Egyptians, who probably
procured it from India. The Greeks and Romans obtained it from the
Phœnicians.

ANTIMONY was probably discovered by the Alchemists. The sulphuret of
the metal, however, is the στιμμι and stibium of the ancients. In Asia
it has been used from time immemorial for painting the eyebrows and
eyelids. Several of the Sulphurets of Antimony have long been used
in medicine. The Tartarate (TARTAR EMETIC) is supposed to have been
discovered by Mynsicht (Thesaurus, etc., Hamburgh, 1631).

MERCURY or QUICKSILVER was known to the ancients. It was probably
first prescribed internally by the Hindus. The Romans and Arabs used
it externally. Pliny says that mercury is poisonous, “unless, indeed,
it is to be administered in the form of an unction on the belly, when
it will stay bloody fluxes.” The Arabs appear to have re-introduced it
into the European practice (Royle). The red oxide was known to Geber.
CALOMEL is the subchloride of mercury. It occurs native in Carniola and
in Spain. The Hindus from very early times prepared it artificially and
prescribed it internally. It was introduced into European practice in
1608. BICHLORIDE OF MERCURY, or CORROSIVE SUBLIMATE, is the _ruskapoor_
of the Hindus, to whom, says Royle, it has long been known. It was
known also by the Chinese, and was prepared by Geber in the eighth
century. The, AMMONIO-CHLORIDE of mercury, or WHITE PRECIPITATE, was
discovered by Raymond Lully in the thirteenth century. CINNABAR or
VERMILION, the RED SULPHURET OF MERCURY, was known to the Greeks, and
was one of the pigments employed by the Egyptians. It has been used by
the Chinese and Hindus in medicine from very early times. The ointment
of mercury killed with oil or fat was used by the Saracens for killing
lice, just as it is used at the present time for the same purpose.

Preparations of ARSENIC have long been used in medicine. Dioscorides
applies the name Arsenikon (αρσενικον) to the yellow Sulphuret of
Arsenic.

The Arabs call it _zurneekh_, which is supposed by Sprengel to be
a corruption of Arsenikon. They were familiar with the white oxide
which they called _sum-al-far_, _mouse poison_ or _rat’s-bane_.
The Hindus are well acquainted with the form of arsenic known as
orpiment, which they call _hurtal_; realgar, which is their _mansil_;
and white arsenic, which they name _sanchya_. Royle thinks it was
first prescribed internally by the Hindus, who used it for leprosy
and intermittent fevers. It is a remedy of great value in many kinds
of skin diseases, and is of great use in agues and in all periodic
disorders, for which it is only inferior to quinine.

SILVER is supposed to have first been employed in medicine by the
Arabs. GOLD was employed by the Greeks and Arabs in medicine, but it is
not known which were the first to so use it. The Hindus used it long
before the alchemists investigated its properties.




INDEX.


  A.

  Abaris cured diseases by incantation, 203.

  Abdominal surgery, 112, 197, 272, 296, 316, 361.

  — surgery of Hindus, 113.

  Abella (about 1059), 313.

  Abercrombie, John (1780-1844), 454.

  Abernethy, J. (1764-1831), 459.

  Abipones, birth customs of, 52, 53.

  Aborigines of Australia, their knowledge of medicine, 34.

  — of South America, 35.

  Abortion in Greece and Rome, 203.

  Abracadabra, 263.

  Abraxas, 263.

  Abyssinians, the, 249.

  Acacias, 35.

  Accad, priests of, 27.

  Accadian mythology, 15, 86.

  Accadians, the, 86.

  Achillini, A. (1463-1512), 337.

  Aconite eaten by horses, 4.

  Actual cautery, 183, 246.

  Actuarius, John (c. 1283), 323.

  Acupuncture invented by Chinese, 130.

  Acute and chronic diseases first distinguished, 212.

  Adamantius of Alexandria, 236.

  Addenbrooke, J. (died 1719), 431.

  Addison, T. (1793-1860), 454.

  Ægidius Corbolensis, 314.

  Ælfred, King, his services to medicine, 274, 275.

  Æneas Sylvius, 336.

  Æschryon (pharmacist), 209.

  Æsculapius, 147, 148, 153.

  Ætiology, 350.

  Ætius (6th cent.), 237.

  Affinity, doctrine of, 423, 449.

  Afflacius, 311.

  African disease theories, 22.

  Agamede, a lady doctor, 155.

  Agate, 257.

  Agathinus of Sparta (1st cent. A.D.), 228.

  Agni, 9.

  Agricola, George (1494-1555), 351.

  Agrippa, Cornelius (1486-1536), 337, 347.

  Ague, 252.


  Ahriman, 141, 142, 143.

  Alaska, treatment of headache by natives of, 17.

  Albertus Magnus (1193-1280), 321.

  Albucasis (d. 1106), 243, 296.

  Alchemy, 301, 350.

  — of the Egyptians, 71.

  Alcohol used everywhere, 46.

  Alcuin, 300.

  Aldabaran, 83.

  Aldrovandi, 346.

  Alexander of Tralles, 234.

  Alexander Severus first established medical lectureships in Rome, 209.

  Alexandria, her famous school, 194.

  — Jews in, 83.

  Alexandrian library, 287.

  — philosophy, 83.

  _Alexis_, diviners of North America, 26.

  Algonquins, 32.

  Ali Abbas, 296.

  Aliptæ, 44, 171.

  Alkinani, 289.

  Alkins, Henry (born 1558), 363.

  All, the, 450.

  Allopathy, 447.

  Almamon, 289.

  Aloes, 275.

  Alphanus Secundus (c. 1050), 310.

  Althaus, J., 458.

  Alum, 486.

  Amaurosis, 211.

  Amazon, aborigines of the, their medicine men, 26.

  — — their intoxicating drink, 48.

  _Ambre_ or _Embre_, an Egyptian medical book, 58.

  America, discovery of, 345.

  American medical education, 435, 436.

  Ammon, 150.

  Ammonia, 487.

  Ammoniacum, 275.

  Ammonius of Alexandria (B.C. 283-247), 198.

  Amputations, 42, 70, 216.

  — in Egyptian surgery, 70.

  Amulets, 23, 31, 48, 129, 247-265, 327, 398, 404.

  — of the Jews, 75.

  Amussat, 458.

  Anæsthesia, how anciently produced, 310.

  Anæsthetics, 449, 464-466, 480.

  Anathemata, 157.

  Anatomy, 105, 175, 231, 326, 336, 364, 365, 381, 390, 391, 436.

  — of ancient Egyptians, 64.

  — at Alexandria, 195.

  — in England, 461.

  — at Oxford, 381.

  — in Rome, 209, 215.

  — at Salerno, 313.

  — well understood by Hippocrates, 174.

  — human, its revival in Europe, 325, 326, 351, 365.

  — comparative, 375.

  — and physiology have made no progress in China, 128.

  Anaxagoras (born about 499 B.C.), 159.

  Anaximander (born 610 B.C.), 159.

  Anaximenes, 159.

  Ancestor-worship in connection with disease, 22, 23.

  _Ancient Medicine_, treatise by Hippocrates, 175.

  Andreæ, J. V. (1586-1654), 370.

  Andromachus, 221.

  Andry, N. (c. 1701), 471.

  Anel (1741-1801), 433.

  Anel, D. (1679-1730), 432.

  Aneurism, 235, 389, 432, 434.

  _Angakoks_, priest-physicians of the Inoits, 30.

  Angelic presidents of medicine, 84.

  Anger of gods as the cause of disease, 270.

  — of demons a cause of disease, 12, 86.

  Anglicanus, Gilbertus, 337.

  Anglo-Saxon medicine, 273.

  Animals and toxicology, 4, 35.

  — experiments on, 216, 217, 378, 379, 436.

  — their medicine and surgery, 3.

  Animism, 7, 8, 24.

  Anthropology, 450.

  Antidotes, 416.

  — for poisons, experiments with, 201.

  _Antidotarium_, 313, 363.

  Anti-fat, 285.

  Antilles Indians, their exorcism of diseases, 29.

  Antimony, 487.

  Antioquia, Indians of, poisoners of wells, 35.

  Antiseptic surgery, 477.

  — treatment, 177.

  Antonius Musa, 213.

  Antyllus (c. 300 _A.D._), 235.

  Anubis, Egyptian god, 60.

  Apaches consider drunkenness a religious duty, 48.

  Apis, Egyptian god, 59, 60.

  Apollo the healer, 147, 169.

  Apollonius of Tyana, 224.

  Apoplexy, Hippocrates on, 182.

  — exorcised by rice, 16.

  Apothecaries, laws relating to, 317.

  Aquinas, Thomas (1225-1274), 321.

  Arabian medicine, 288, 291, 311.

  Aranzi, J. C. (1530-1589), 367.

  Arawaks of Surinam, their birth customs, 50.

  Arbuthnot, J. (1658-1735), 451.

  Archagathus (B.C. 219), first regular practitioner in Rome, 208.

  Archeus, 380.

  Archiatri, the, 206, 210, 236.

  Archigenes of Apamœa (circ. A.D. 98-117), 228.

  Archimatthæus, 311.

  Aretæus of Cappadocia (1st cent.), 228.

  Aristotle (born B.C. 334), 192, 384, 421.

  Armstrong, G., 439.

  Arneman, J. (1763-1807), 435.

  Arnica, 350.

  Arnold of Villa Nova (1235-1312), 326.

  Arnot, N., 478.

  Arrack, “the Christian deity,” 47.

  “Arrows” as warrants to disease-spirits in China, 127.

  Arrow-poison of Indians, 35.

  Arsenic, 488.

  Artemis, goddess of health, 149.

  Arteries, ligation of, 217, 232, 245, 368.

  — twisting of bleeding, 224, 237, 368.

  Aryans, the, 96.

  Asclepiades of Prusa (1st cent. B.C.), 212.

  — schools of the, 168, 170.

  Asclepiadists, 213.

  Asclepiads, the, 157, 168.

  _Ashwins_, physicians of the Hindu gods, 100.

  Asoka established hospitals in India, 117.

  — royal patron of medicine, 111.

  Assellius, C. (1581-1626), 390.

  Assyrians, their medicine, 86, 92.

  Asthma, remedies for, 37.

  Astigmatism, 463.

  Astringents, 43.

  Astrology in medicine, 129, 139, 319, 334, 335, 351.

  Astruc, J. (1684-1766), 429.

  Athenæus of Cilicia (c. A.D. 69), 227.

  Athens, plague of, 25.

  Athletes rubbed with oil, 44.

  Atomic philosophy, 164.

  — theory, 159, 449.

  Atoms, doctrine of the, 98.

  Auenbrugger, L. (1722-1809), 453.

  Auscultation, 170, 177, 453.

  Australia, aborigines of, their superstitions, 17, 21, 23.

  Australian tribes, their medical practice, 33.


  Australian-Tasmanian district, 12.

  _Autmoins_, diviners of North America, 26.

  Automatism, 379.

  Ava, drink made from, 49.

  Avenzoar (12th cent.), 297.

  Averroes (born A.D. 1126), 297.

  Avicenna (born A.D. 980), 296.

  _Ayur Veda_, the, Hindu medical classic, 98, 99, 102.

  Aztecs, hospitals of the, 239.


  B.

  Baas, J. H., 466.

  Babhata on Hindu medicine, 114.

  Babylon, captivity of Jews in, 81.

  Babylonian religion, 27.

  Babylonians, their medicine, 86.

  Bacchic orgies, 32, 150.

  Bacchus, 150.

  Backtischwah, 290, 291.

  Bacon, Francis (1561-1626), 377.

  Bacon, Roger (1214-1298), 322.

  Bacteria, 472, 473.

  Bacteriologists, 480.

  Bacteriology anticipated by Empedocles, 161.

  Badaga folk, their treatment of pregnant women, 52.

  — their insurance against disease, 29.

  Baer, 481.

  Bafiotes of South Guinea, their surgery, 45.

  Baghdad, medical schools of, 291.

  Baillie, M. (1761-1823), 454.

  Baillou, G. (1536-1614), 363.

  Bandages, waxed, 178.

  Bandaging of mummies, 57.

  Banishing disease-demons, 15, 86.

  Bannister, John, 363.

  Barbers and surgery, 317, 434, 435.

  — and surgeons, their fellowship, 329, 354.

  Barth, J. (1745-1818), 463.

  Bartholin, T. (1619-1680), 376, 390.

  Bartholomæus, 314.

  Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, 359.

  — Hospital medical school, 459.

  Baschkirs expel devils of disease, 138.

  Bassi, 473.

  Bastian, H. C. (b. 1837), 458, 472.

  Basutos, their theory of diseases, 22.

  Baths, 400.

  Bayle, G. L. (1774-1816), 453.

  Bayle, P. (1647-1706), 380.

  Beale, L. S. (b. 1828), 480.

  Beans sacred to Pythagoreans, 164.

  Beclard, J. (1818-1887), 458.

  Beelzebub, god of medicine, 85.

  — cast out by Beelzebub, 29.

  Beer of the Himalayas, 48.

  Beer, G. J. (1663-1821), 463.

  Beetle, an emblem, 250.

  Behaviour of doctors, 312.

  Bell, B. (1763-1820), 459.

  Belladonna eaten by birds and herbivora, 4.

  Bellini, 420.

  Bells, church, medicine drunk out of, 278.

  Benares, a seat of Buddhist medicine, 111.

  Benedict, St., 300, 308.

  Benivieni, A. (c. 1500), 352.

  Bennett, J. H. (1812-1875), 454.

  Bentley, Prof., on new American remedies, 37.

  Berberine, 37, 38.

  Berenger of Carpi (died 1527), 361.

  Bernard, C. (1813-1878), 456.

  Bernard the Provincial, 315.

  Bernouelli, J. and D., 420.

  Bert, P. (1833-1886), 457, 474.

  Bertharius (about 856), 310.

  Berthollet, 448.

  Bertrandi (1723-1797), 433.

  Berzelius (1779-1848), 449.

  Bethesda, pool of, 400.

  Bezoar stone, 257.

  Bible and demoniacal theory of epilepsy, 16, 79.

  — diseases of, 79, 432.

  — its superiority to other sacred books, 74.

  Bichat, M. F. X. de (1771-1802), 429, 446.

  Bile as the cause of sickness first suggested, 160.

  Bint-resh, the princess, cured by the god Khonsu, 65.

  Bird-surgery, 3.

  Birds as evil spirits, 17.

  — fond of toddy, 49.

  Birth customs of the Caribs, 51.

  — Arawaks, 52.

  — Land Dyaks, 52.

  — Abipones, 52.

  — Basques, 52.

  — Corsicans, 52.

  — Chinese, 52.

  — Iroquois, 53.

  — Badaga folk, 53.

  — Romans, 54.

  Bismuth, 487.

  Black death, the, 329.

  — magic, 66, 410.

  Blackmore, R. (1650-1729), 425.

  Blaes, G. (died 1662), 390.

  Blane, G. (b. 1747), 426.

  Bleeding, 82, 134, 156, 217, 274, 280, 285.

  — practised by savages, 33.

  — arrest of, by savages, 40, 42.

  Blizzard, W. (1743-1835), 459.

  “Blood-bread” in consumption, 131.

  Blood as food for invalids, 35, 396.

  — circulation of the, 385, 389.

  — in medicine, 396.

  — pressure, 420.

  — purifiers used by negroes, 38.

  Bloodless amputations invented by Chrysippus, 195.

  Blue cohosh plant, 37.

  Blumenbach, J. F. (1752-1840), 450.

  Bodo folk of India, their disease-demons, 22.

  Boerhaave (1668-1738), 422, 423, 426.

  Bonnet, 472.

  _Book of the Dead_, 58, 60.

  Bora initiations of Australia, 43.

  Borax, 486.

  Borde, Andrew (c. 1532), 358.

  Borden, T. de (1722-1776), 430.

  Borelli, G. A. (1608-1679), 381, 420.

  Borneo, birth customs in, 52.

  Botanic gardens established, 201.

  Botany, 297, 336, 351, 363, 426, 427, 438.

  Boulimia, a species of hunger, 197.

  Bowls for medicine, 95.

  Box-bark poultices, 33.

  Boyer, A. (1757-1833), 461.

  _Boyl-Ya_, 17.

  Boyle, Robert (1626-1691), 378, 379, 381, 419.

  Brahmanism, 110.

  Brahmans forbidden by Menu to become doctors, 101.

  — their knowledge of medicine, 101.

  Braid, J., 457.

  Brain, anatomy of, 365, 391.

  — diseases, 228.

  — surgery, 112, 177, 206, 456.

  — — of the Society Islanders, 43.

  Branca, 368.

  Brandy in medicine, 326.

  Briggs, W. (died 1704), 438.

  Bright, R. (1789-1858), 454.

  _British Medical Journal_, 467.

  Britomartis, 150.

  Brittan, 474.

  Broca, P. (1824-1880), 458.

  Brodie, B. (1783-1862), 459.

  Bromfield, W. (1717-1792), 435.

  Bromine, 487.

  Bronchitis, remedies for, 34, 37, 49.

  Bronchocele, 316.

  Bronchotomy, 364.

  — invented by Asclepiades, 213.

  Broth of human flesh, a Chinese remedy, 131.

  Broussais, F. J. W. (1772-1838), 446.

  Brown, J. (1735-1788), 427.

  Browne, Sir Thomas (1605-1682), 391.

  Brown-Sequard (b. 1817), 456.

  Browning’s Poem, “Saul,” 78.

  Bruner, J. C. (1653-1727), 437.

  Brunhilda, a doctress, 272.

  Bruno, Giordano (1548-1600), 346, 351.

  Brunonian theory, 427.

  Bucknill, J. C. (b. 1817), 457.

  Budd, 474.

  Buddhism, 102, 109.

  — had a gospel for all creatures, 110.

  Buffon (1707-1788), 439, 448.

  _Buhitos_ of Hispaniola, 26.

  Bulleyn, William (died 1576), 363.

  Burial customs of Lower Congo, 24.

  — of disease-demons, 15, 139.

  Burking, 461.

  Burma, disease-demons of, 21.

  Burns, J. (1775-1850), 459.

  Burrows, 476.

  Butts, William (died 1545), 359.

  Byzantine medicine, 243.


  C.

  Cabalism, 84, 337.

  Cabbage, 162.

  Cactus juice an intoxicant, 48.

  Cæsalpinus, A. (1519-1603), 351, 385.

  Cæsarean operation in Central Africa, 45.

  — in Europe, 361, 362.

  Caius, John (1510-1573), 360.

  Cajeput tree, 34.

  Calculi, 177.

  Calenda, 313.

  Caliphs, their services to science, 288.

  Callisen (1740-1824), 433.

  Calumba root, 37.

  Cambodians, their exorcism of small-pox, 30.

  Cambridge University, 340.

  Camomile, 285.

  Camper (1722-1789), 435.

  Cancer, 182, 183.

  Canopic jars of Egypt, 63.

  Capillary vessels, discovery of, 386, 389.

  Carbonic acid, 380.

  Cardan (1501-1576), 351.

  Carib races, their use of cascarilla, 49.

  Carmina (magic songs), 207.

  Carpenter, W. B., 481.

  Carter, R. B., 463.

  Cascarilla, its introduction into medicine, 49.

  _Casdim_ and _Mecasphim_, 91, 92.

  Cases, collections of interesting, 327.

  Cassava bread, 36.

  Casserius (1561-1616), 364.

  Cassius Felix (1st cent.), 228.

  Cassorius, 390.

  Castor oil, its action on savages, 37.

  Castration, 77, 169.

  Cat, Le (1700-1768), 432.

  Catalepsy, 390.

  Catamenial women possessed by demons, 143.

  — superstitions concerning, 54, 78.

  Cataract, 211, 235, 297, 314.

  Catheter invented, 197, 245, 297.

  Cato as a family doctor, 207.

  Cato’s hatred of doctors, 207.

  Cats, their use of medicines, 3.

  Caul of a child, 273.

  — fat, superstitions concerning, 17.

  Caulophyllin, 37.

  Cauterising instruments, 245.

  Cavendish, 448.

  _Caxiri_, a drink of the Brazilian Indians, 48.

  Celery, 285.

  Cellular pathology, 455.

  Celsus, A. C. (B.C. 50-A.D. 7), 215.

  Ceylon, medicine in, 107.

  Chadwick, E., 478.

  Chaldæan doctors of three classes, 90.

  Chaldæans, their medicine, 86.

  Chamberlen, H. (1664-1728), 435.

  Chambre, Dr., 358.

  Characts as amulets, 262, 263, 327.

  Charaka, the Hindu Hippocrates, 100, 103, 289.

  Charas, M. (1618-1698), 394.

  Charcot, J. M. (b. 1825), 456, 482.

  Charlemagne, patron of medical education, 310.

  Charles the First, his miraculous blood, 373.

  Charlton, W. (1619-1707), 438.

  Charms, 23, 27, 86, 129, 133, 247-265, 327, 334, 398, 404.

  — largely used in Chinese practice, 129.

  — swallowed as medicine, 134.

  Chassaignac, 458.

  Chaucer on domestic medicine, 328.

  Cheiron, the centaur who instructed Æsculapius, 147, 148.

  Chelius, Von (1794-1876), 462.

  Chemistry, 301, 302, 336, 350, 368, 419.

  — of Egyptians, 71.

  — originated at Baghdad, 291, 293.

  Cheselden, W. (1688-1752), 433.

  Chevreuil, 472.

  Cheyne, 420.

  “Cheyne-Stokes respiration,” 454.

  Child-bed described by St. Augustine, 54.

  Children’s hospitals, 439.

  Chinese medicine, 125.

  Chloroform, 464-466

  Christianity, influence of, on medicine, 237.

  “Christian science healing,” 406.

  Christison, Robert (1797-1882), 454.

  Chronos, Egyptian god, 59.

  Chrysippus (lived 4th cent. B.C.), 194.

  Chthonic orgies, 32.

  Chyliferous vessels, 390.

  Cicuta (the poison), 220.

  Cinchona bark, 38, 342, 382.

  Circulation of the blood, 202, 236, 237, 325, 351, 361, 364, 365, 378.

  Circumcision, its origin, 76.

  — practised by many races, 76, 77, 342.

  Clark, Andrew (b. 1826), 455, 484, 485.

  Cleopatra, a specialist in women’s diseases, 201.

  Climacteric years, a Chaldæan doctrine, 163.

  Clinical instruction in ancient Rome, 209, 368.

  — medicine, 312, 384.

  — thermometry, 431.

  Clive and vaccination, 440.

  Cloacina, 206.

  Club-foot, treatment of, by Hippocrates, 178.

  — tenotomy in, 462.

  Clysters in Egyptian medicine, 67, 156.

  Cnidian sentences, 170.

  Cnidos, school of, 170.

  Coan prognostics, 170.

  Cod-liver oil, 454.

  Cœlius Aurelianus, 219.

  Cohn, 473.

  Coiter, V. (1534-1600), 364.

  Colchicum used for gout, 218.

  Cold-water dressings, 433.

  — treatment of fever, 439.

  Cole, 420.

  Colic, curious remedy for, 251, 254.

  College of Health in Rome (154 B.C.), 206.

  Collége de Saint Côme, 323.

  Colles, A. (1773-1843), 459.

  Collins, S. (d. 1710), 393.

  Colour-blindness, 449.

  Colours in diseases, 251, 257, 258, 327.

  Columbus (d. 1559), 367, 385.

  Comma-bacillus, 474.

  Comparative anatomy, 192, 391.

  Compass, 294.

  Condensed milk invented, 220.

  Confucianism the chief religion of the Chinese, 126.

  Congo tribes, their theories of disease, 22, 30.

  Conjuring amongst savages, 26.

  Conolly, J. (1796-1866), 457.

  Conrad, Cardinal, 305.

  Conservative surgery, 434, 464.

  Constantine the Carthaginian, 310, 311.

  “Constitutional irritation,” theory of, 459.

  Consultations in ancient Rome, 211.

  Consumption, contagiousness of, 363.

  — treated with blood-bread, 131.

  Contagion, living, 473.

  Convalescent homes of ancient Rome, 240.

  Convulsions, 184.

  _Coomboorah_, good spirit of Australians, 24.

  Cooper, Astley (1768-1841), 459.

  Copaiba, 38.

  Copho (12th cent.), 313, 314.

  Copland, Robert (c. 1547), 359.

  Copper, 487.

  Coral as a charm, 410.

  — islanders, sorcery of, 23.

  Cordova famous for learning, 292, 293.

  Cordus, E. (1486-1535), 352.

  Cordus, V. (1515-1544), 352, 363.

  Corpuscles of the blind discovered, 389.

  Corsicans and the couvade, 52.

  Corumba wizards, 29.

  Corvisart, J. N. (1755-1821), 453.

  Corybantes, the, 85.

  Cos, school of, 170, 172.

  Cosmas and Damian, SS., 234, 323.

  Cosmo de Medici, 373.

  “Couching” for cataract, 211.

  Council of Tours (A.D. 1163) degraded surgery, 305.

  Couvade, the, described, 50.

  Cow-dung as a remedy, 285.

  — -pox, 439.

  — -religion of the Toda tribe, 48.

  Cowper, W. (1666-1709), 437.

  Cramp-rings, 371.

  “Critical days,” 106, 202.

  Crocodile’s dung used in medicine, 201, 211.

  — incantation against, 65.

  Croome, W. (d. 1684), 393.

  Croonian lectures, 393.

  Crotona, school of, 161.

  Croup, remedies for, 37, 363, 369.

  Cruikshank, W. (1745-1800), 436.

  Crystals, healing by, 33.

  Ctesias of Cnidus, 171.

  Cullen, W. (1710-1790), 426.

  Culpeper (c. 1653), 396.

  Cupping, 45, 156, 246.

  Currie, J. (1756-1805), 439.

  Cuvier, 421.

  Cyclamen, 251.

  Cyon, E. (b. 1843), 457.

  Cyrene, school of, 170.

  Czermak, 459.


  D.

  Dacotas, their theories of disease-demons, 22.

  _Daêvas_, the causes of disease amongst Parsees, 143.

  Dalton (1776-1844), 449.

  Dancing mania, 331, 339.

  Danish witchcraft, 18.

  Darling river, medicine on the, 27, 35.

  Darwin, Charles (1809-1882), 451.

  Darwin, Erasmus (1701-1802), 428.

  Darwinism in Hindu philosophy, 98.

  _Dasyus_, 96.

  Davaine, 473.

  David exorcised Saul by incantations, 78.

  Da Vinci, Leonardo (1452-1519), 336.

  Davy (1788-1829), 449, 464.

  Dead, the genii of, in Egypt, 63.

  — offence to the, as cause of disease, 20, 21.

  Death, superstitions connected with, 413.

  — fiends, 144.

  Decussation of optic nerves discovered, 209.

  De Dondis, Jacob (1298-1359), 326.

  Deities of Chinese medicine and surgery, 128.

  Demetrius of Apamœa (B.C. 276), 198.

  Democedes (6th cent. B.C.), 81, 164.

  Democritus of Abdera (5th cent. B.C.), 164.

  Demoniacal possession in Western Africa, 14.

  Demoniacs and lunatics, 16.

  Demonology precedes theology, 24.

  Demon-theory of disease in China, 126, 127, 129.

  Demons of disease, 10, 66, 77, 78, 86, 88, 89, 90, 99, 136, 143,
    161, 327, 332, 346.

  Demonstrations of anatomy, 326, 390.

  Demosthenes Philalethes (c. A.D. 50), the oculist, 198, 211.

  _Dengen_, the gout demon, 14.

  Dental operations, 206, 217, 390.

  Dentistry, 299, 390.

  — of ancient Egyptians, 63.

  Derivation and revulsion, 176.

  Desault, P. J. (1744-1795). 433.

  Descartes (1596-1650), 377, 420.

  Desiderius (c. 1685), 310.

  Development from egg, 377.

  — understood by Pythagoras, 163.

  Devil brought up by emetics, 30.

  Dhanwantari, the Hindu Æsculapius, 104.

  Dhimal people of India, their theories of disease, 22.

  Diabetes first named and described, 198.

  Diagnosis, 228.

  — Egyptian, 68.

  Diana, goddess of health, 149.

  Diarrhœa, remedies for, 34.

  Dictionary, medical, 327.

  Dietetics, 176, 180, 181.

  Dieting the sick in Homer, 153.

  Digby, Sir Kenelm, 397.

  Digestion, 419.

  Diktynna, 150.

  Dill, 162.

  Dimsdale, J. (1711-1800), 439.

  Diocles Carystius, 189.

  Diogenes of Apollonia (460 B.C.), 160.

  Dionis, P. (died 1718), 390.

  Dionysus, 150, 151.

  — festivals of, 50, 150.

  — mysteries of, 32, 150.

  Dioscorides, his materia medica, 225.

  Diotima, the Athenian prophetess, 24.

  Discovery of causes, 165.

  Disease, a punishment for sin, 76, 87, 88, 89.

  — -demons, 29, 30, 86, 99.

  — — of Egypt, 64, 65.

  — dispelled by drumming, 17.

  — goddesses of the Romans, 206.

  — -making in the New Hebrides, 17.

  — personification of, 10.

  — -spirits, 10, 86, 89, 90, 129, 136, 327.

  — theory of, in Bible, 74.

  — theories of the Greeks, 166.

  — -winds, 90.

  Diseases as personages, 15, 139.

  — blown away, 29.

  — caused by offended dead, 20, 139.

  — — ghosts, 18, 31, 139.

  — the consequences of sin in previous states of existence, 100.

  — of the Bible, 79.

  — treated by magic, 26, 27, 86, 90, 351.

  Disgusting remedies, 131, 201, 211, 394-397.

  Dislocations well treated by Hippocrates, 174.

  Dissection, 218, 219, 325, 326, 379, 390.

  — of the human body, 326, 361.

  — — practised in time of Hippocrates, 174.

  — — in India, 114, 115, 117.

  Dittany eaten by wounded goats, 3, 150.

  Diuretic medicines, 38.

  Divination and physic, 26, 269.

  — by teraphim, 75.

  Dobbo, evil spirits of the Watje, 28.

  Doctor, title of, 307.

  Dodart, 420.

  Dogmatic school, the, 187.

  Dog-rose, why so called, 225.

  Dogs, their use of natural medicines, 3.

  Domestic medicine of middle ages, 324.

  Donzellini, 420.

  Douglas, J. (1675-1742), 426.

  Drake, J. (1667-1707), 431.

  Dran, Le (1685-1770), 432.

  Dreams, the origin of belief in the soul and future life, 9.

  Druggists of ancient Rome, 221.

  Druids, medicine of the, 269.

  Drum of the ear first described, 236.

  Drums, use of, in scaring disease-demons, 17.

  Drunkenness as a religious duty, 48.

  Dualism in Accadian philosophy, 88.

  Dubois, Jacques (1478-1555), 364.

  Duchenne, G. B., 457.

  Dumas (1800-1884), 449, 464.

  Duncan, M., 465.

  Dung in medicine, 396.

  Dusch, Van, 472.

  Dyaks of Borneo, 12, 13, 14.

  Dyonisia, the, drunkenness at, 50.


  Dysentery, remedies for, 34, 131.

  Dyspepsia, remedies for, 37, 38.


  E.

  Eagle stone, 257.

  Ear, anatomy of, 361, 367.

  — bones of, 337.

  — diseases, 217.

  Earth, edible, 36, 37.

  Eastern Inoits, 6.

  Ebers papyrus, 58, 64, 67, 69, 71.

  Ebn Albiathar (died about 1197), 297.

  Ecclesiasticus probably written by a physician, 82.

  Eclectics, sect of the, 227.

  Edinburgh College of Physicians, 373.

  — Medical School, 425, 436.

  Education of physicians, 103, 105, 178, 179, 305, 317, 426.

  Edward the Confessor, St., 372.

  Egypt, its great antiquity, 57.

  Egyptian medicine, 57, 67, 68.

  Ehrenberg, 473.

  Eir, goddess of physicians, 272.

  Elder, the, 256.

  Electricity, 427, 449.

  — first used in medicine, 215.

  Electro-therapeutics, 457.

  Elementary bodies, 83.

  Elements as causes of disease, 16, 90.

  — in Ovid’s metamorphoses, 166.

  Elephantiasis, 228.

  — first described, 213.

  Elixir of life, 100, 396.

  Elliotson, J., 430.

  Embalmers of Egypt, 61, 63.

  Embryotomy, 294.

  Emetics, 43, 83, 156.

  Empedocles (born about 490 B.C.), physiologist and philosopher, 160.

  Empirics, school of the, 199.

  Empiric tripod, the, 199, 201.

  Empyema, how treated by Hippocrates, 182.

  Enchanters, 91, 108.

  Enemas used by Mongols, 135.

  Engineering and physiology, 421.

  Epidaurus, temple of Æsculapius at, 149.

  Epidemics, theory of, 29.

  — of middle ages, 329-332.

  Epilepsy, 234.

  — and demoniacal possession, 181.

  — in the New Testament, 16.

  Epimenedes, 158.

  Epione (the Soother), 149.

  Episynthetics, sect of the, 227.

  Epsom salts, 438.

  Erasistratus of Iulis (about B.C. 340-280), 196.

  Erasmus, 357.

  Erichsen, J. E. (b. 1818), 460.

  Erysipelas, 183.

  Esmarch, F. (b. 1823), 462.

  Esmun, Phœnician god, 151.

  Esquimaux, an intermediate type between past and present, 6.

  Essenes, Jewish sect of, 82.

  Esthonians, 9.

  Ether, 352.

  — as an anæsthetic, 464.

  Ethics, medical, 169.

  Etienne, Charles (1503-1564), 364.

  Etiology, 446.

  Etiquette of physicians, 106, 107, 169, 298, 329.

  Etruscans, their science, 205.

  Eucalyptus, a popular remedy of Australian tribes, 34, 36.

  Eudemus (B.C. 15), 214.

  Euphorbius, 213.

  Euryphon of Cnidos, 170.

  Eustachian tube, 367.

  Eustachius, 367.

  Evil eye, 16, 410, 411.

  Examinations instituted at Montpellier, 305, 384.

  Excitability, doctrine of, 427.

  Excitement, theory of, 446.

  Exorcising disease-demons, 15, 86, 87, 136, 144, 163, 327.

  Exorcisms, 10, 13, 20, 21, 64, 72, 86, 90, 135, 136, 139, 142, 327,
     411, 412.

  Expectant treatment, 382, 424.

  Experimental medicine, 369.

  — physiology, 212, 378, 379, 436, 456, 457, 483-485.

  Experiments, surgical, how practised by Hindus, 116.

  — their prerogatives, 322.

  Extension, surgical, 177.

  Eye, construction of the, 337.

  — diseases treated in Egypt with human brains, 69.

  — doctors satirised by Martial, 210.


  F.

  Fabricius (1557-1619), 364, 385.

  _Facies Hippocratica_, 181.

  Faith healing, its rationale, 320, 333, 481, 482.

  Fallopian tubes, 366.

  Fallopius, Gabriel (1523-1562), 366.

  Faraday, M. (1791-1867), 449.

  Farr, W., 478.

  Faye, Le, 433.

  Fees, 211, 323.

  — of Chinese doctors, 130.

  — the largest on record, 196.

  — of Welsh court physicians, 282.

  — — surgeons, 286.

  — of Parsee doctors, 144.


  Females, their marvellous influence, 53.

  Fennel, 285.

  Fermentation, 471, 473, 474.

  Fermented liquors, how discovered, 46.

  Fern (male), remedy for tape-worm, 36.

  Ferrier, D. (b. 1843), 457.

  Fetish worship, 249.

  Fetishism of the Malagasy, 23.

  Fever and stench goddesses, 206.

  — -demons, 31, 87, 97, 136, 137.

  — -puppets, 31.

  — spirit, the, 87, 89, 136.

  Fevers, treatment of, 383.

  — and ague, remedies for, 34, 43, 136, 137, 181, 342.

  Feverfew (the herb), 249.

  Fiends as the cause of insanity, 22.

  Fiend-sickness, 278.

  Final causes believed in by Galen, 230.

  Finnish mythology, 14.

  — theories of disease, 15.

  Finno-Tartarian magic, 125.

  Fire, 165.

  — -worship, 273.

  Fish capturing by poisons, 35.

  Fistula treated by the ligature, 177, 297.

  Flap operation, 229, 389.

  Flint instruments in surgery, 33, 43, 70.

  Flogging as a remedy, 139, 278.

  Flourens, P. (1794-1867), 456.

  Fludd, Robert (b. 1574), 368.

  Fœtus, anatomy of, 364, 367, 425.

  Fomentations, 42.

  Food remains in sorcery, 17.

  Forbes, J. (1787-1861), 467.

  Forceps, 244, 245.

  — in obstetric surgery, 435.

  Forensic medicine, 376, 454.

  Foster, M., 483, 484.

  Fothergill, J. (1712-1780), 436.

  Fourcroy, 448.

  Four doctors, the, 314.

  — masters, the, 314.

  Fractures, ancient treatment of, 178, 184, 216.

  France, anatomy in, 364.

  Franco, Pierre (c. 1560), 362.

  Frank, J. P., 429.

  Franklin, 450.

  Frascatorius (1483-1553), 363, 388.

  Frederic II., his services to medical education, 316, 317.

  Freemasonry, 370.

  Freind, J. (1675-1728), 432.

  _Fuh-Hi_, the deity of Chinese doctors, 127.

  Fuller, T. (d. 1734), 438.

  Fumitory and exorcism, 256.

  Funeral ceremonies, physicians not to be present at, 101.

  — offerings of the Egyptian fellahs, 72.

  — superstitions, 29, 72.

  Furnivall, Dr., on the medicine of the Tudor reigns, 359.


  G.

  Gaddesden, John of, 327.

  Galbanum, 275.

  Gale, Thomas (1507-1586), 354, 355, 363.

  Galen (b. A.D. 170), 229, 385.

  Gall, F. J. (1757-1828), 456.

  Gall-stones, 363.

  Galvani, 450.

  Ganglion, 183.

  Gariopontus (about 1056), 310.

  Gastroraphy in the time of the Vikings, 372.

  _Gaunab_, the Hottentot disease-demon, 16.

  Gay-Lussac, 449.

  Germ theory of disease, 432, 452, 471.

  Gesner, Conrad (1516-1565), 346, 351, 359, 362, 363.

  Geynes, Dr. (died 1563), 360.

  Ghosts as causing diseases, 23, 31, 139.

  Gilbert, William (died 1540), 361.

  Giliani, Alassandra, a lady anatomist, 326.

  Ginseng, 133.

  Gippsland, natives of, 23.

  Girdles, magic, 259.

  Glacial period of the Inoits, 6.

  Gladstone, Mr., on the origin of surgery, 41.

  Glands, anatomy of the, 390, 437.

  — of intestines discovered, 209.

  Glisson, Francis, 389.

  Gnosticism and amulets, 252.

  Goddard, J. (died 1674), 389.

  Gods, plants sacred to the, 46.

  Goethe, 452.

  Goitre, 459.

  Gold, 488.

  Gold Coast negroes trace diseases to ghosts, 13.

  Gooch, B., 433.

  Gordonius, 327.

  Goulston, Thomas (d. 1632), 380.

  Gout, 183, 280.

  Graaf, De, 339.

  Gräfe, Von, 459.

  Gradibus, M., de, 337.

  Graves, superstitions connected with, 413.

  Graves, R. J. (1797-1853), 454.

  Greatrakes, Valentine, 399.

  Gredring, J. E. (1718-1775), 439.

  Greek medicine, 147.

  Greeks indebted to Egypt for philosophy, 98.

  Gregory, J. (1758-1822), 426.

  Grew, N. (b. 1641), 438.

  Gross, S. (1805-1884), 462.

  Guaiacum, 38, 342, 375.

  Guanches of the stone and bone epoch, 6.

  Guglielmini, 420.


  Guinea, people of, attribute disease to enchantment, 29.

  Gunpowder, 294.

  Guthrie, G. (1785-1856), 460.

  Guy, 478.

  Guy de Chauliac (b. 1300), 330.

  Gwyddoniaid, the, Welsh men of knowledge, 280.

  Gymnasia, 171.

  Gynæcology, 219, 242, 243, 294, 313, 361, 429.


  H.

  Haeckel, Ernst (b. 1834), 452.

  Hæmorrhoids operated on by Hippocrates, 177, 183.

  Haen, De (1704-1776), 431.

  Haeser, H. (1811-1885), 466.

  Hahnemann (1755-1843), 446-448.

  Hair, cuttings of, superstitions concerning, 17, 143.

  — dye of Egyptians, 71.

  — superstitions concerning, 16, 143, 408.

  Hales, S. (1677-1761), 436.

  Hall, M. (1790-1857), 457.

  Haller (1708-1777), 437.

  Hallucinations of vision first distinguished by Celsus, 217.

  Hamey, B., 389.

  _Hantu_ disease-spirits, 12.

  _Haoma_, the king of healing-plants, 142.

  Hare-lip, ancient treatment of, 277, 297.

  Hart, Ernest (b. 1836), 467.

  Harvey, William (1578-1657), 377, 385-388.

  Hastings, C. (1794-1866), 467.

  Havers, C. (d. 1702), 425.

  Hayti, poisoning in, 19.

  Hea, an Accadian deity, 88, 91, 92, 93, 95.

  Head, injuries to the, 184.

  Headache, remedies for, 34, 37, 89, 251.

  — cured by drum-beating, 17.

  Healing art a religion, 446.

  — craft of Australian tribes, 33.

  Heberden, W. (1710-1801), 439.

  Hebra (1816-1880), 455.

  Hebrews had no magic of their own, 75.

  Hecquet, 419.

  Hegel, G. W. F. (1770-1831), 451.

  Hegeton, 198.

  Heidenhain, R., 457.

  Heliodorus (c. A.D. 100), 228.

  Hellebore, 220.

  — first used by Melampus, 152.

  — its uses discovered by the goat, 3.

  Hells for Chinese physicians, 129.

  Helmholtz, H. L. (b. 1821), 463.

  Helmont, Van, 380, 419.

  Hemlock, 220.

  — eaten by goats, sheep, and horses, 4.

  Hemp intoxication, 310.

  Henbane eaten by sheep, cows, and pigs, 4.

  Henle, F. G. (1809-1815), 452, 473.

  Heracleitus of Ephesus (born about 556 B.C.), 159.

  Herbalists, 359, 369.

  Herb baths, 401.

  Hermes, god of medicine, 150.

  Hermes Trismegistus, 58, 60, 150.

  Hermetic books, the, 58, 61, 151, 337.

  Hernia, 192, 228, 316.

  Herniotomy, 362.

  Herodicus, 171, 172, 477.

  Herodotus on Egyptian medicine, 62.

  — found no doctors in Babylon and Assyria, 89, 90.

  — (Roman physician), 228.

  Herophilus of Chalcedon (about B.C. 335-280), 195.

  Hesiod, 155.

  Highmore, N. (1613-1685), 390.

  Hildegard, St., famous physician, 307.

  Himly, C. (1772-1837), 463.

  Hinduism as a creed, 97.

  Hindus, antiquity of, 96.

  Hip-joint disease, 183.

  Hippocrates (b. 460 B.C.), 172.

  — first described trepanning, 44.

  — works of, 178.

  Hippopotamus fabled to have discovered the art of bleeding, 156.

  Hispaniola, divination and physic in, 26.

  Histories of Medicine, 432, 466, 467.

  Hobbes (1588-1679), 379.

  Hodgkin, T. (1797-1866), 454.

  Hoffmann, F. (1660-1742), 421, 422, 424, 472.

  Holy water, 272.

  — — in Babylonian sorcery, 87.

  — wells, 272, 401.

  Home, Sir E., 434.

  Homer, medicine of, 152.

  — on Egyptian medicines, 66.

  Homœopathy, 234, 446-448.

  Honain (9th cent.), 295.

  Hooping-cough, 285.

  Horne, Van (1621-1670), 391.

  Horsley, V., 458.

  Horus, Egyptian divinity, 58, 60.

  Hospitals, their origin, 239, 240, 241, 294, 341.

  — in India, 120.

  — and medical schools of ancient Hindus, 117.

  — at Damascus, 294.

  Hottentots, disease-demon of the, 16.

  — practise inoculations, 45.

  Houel, N. (1520-1585), 375.

  Howard, John (1726-1790), 429.

  Howell, Dda (A.D. 930), his medical laws, 282.

  _Huang-ti_, an ancient Chinese writer on medicine, 126.

  Hudibras on the couvade, 52.

  Hufeland, C. W. von (1762-1836), 446.

  Hukeems, native doctors of India, 121, 123.

  Human flesh in Chinese medicine, 132.

  — sacrifices and anatomy, 271.

  — — commuted in circumcision, 77.

  Humanism, 337.

  Humboldt, 449.

  Humoral pathology, 189, 426.

  Hunter, J. (1728-1793), 433.

  Hunter, W. (1718-1783), 438.

  Husbands, treatment of, by Carib wives, 50.

  Hutchinson, J. (b. 1828), 460.

  Huxley, Thomas (b. 1825), 452.

  Hydatids of liver understood by Hippocrates, 182.

  Hydrocephalus, trephining for, 183.

  Hydrodynamics, 379.

  Hydrogen, 350.

  Hydrophobia, remedies for, 83.

  — superstitions, remedy for, 210.

  “Hydrostatic test,” 376.

  Hydro-therapeutics, 467.

  Hygeia, goddess of health, 149.

  Hygiene, 478.

  Hymns to cure disease, 88.

  Hypnotism, 457.


  I.

  Iatro-chemical school, 419.

  — -mathematical school, 419, 420.

  Iatrosophists, 236.

  Iberians, their birth customs, 52.

  Ibis believed to have invented clysters, 67.

  Ibn Ezra, 84.

  Iccus of Tarentum, 171.

  Ideas, the origin of, 9.

  Idiots divinely inspired, 22.

  Ignorant doctors of China have a special hell, 129.

  _I Kuang Tāi Wông_, the god of Chinese surgery, 127.

  Iliac passion, the, how treated, 214.

  Images of demons as talismans, 88.

  — of gods used to ward off disease-demons, 95.

  —, wax, etc., their use in sorcery, 17, 66, 405, 406.

  Imhotep, the Egyptian Æsculapius, 58.

  Immortality of the soul taught by Pythagoras, 163.

  Immunity, 457.

  Incantations against diseases, 15, 86, 87, 91, 108, 247.

  Income of Greek physicians, 203.

  — of Roman physicians, 211, 212.

  Incubatory sleep, 167.

  Indian Archipelago, disease spirits of, 12.

  — medicine and the Mahometans, 298.


  — tribes, their medicine and surgery, 41, 42.

  Indra taught mankind the healing art, 100.

  Inductive method in science, 322, 377.

  Inferior laryngeal nerve discovered, 209.

  Influenza, 352.

  Inhibitory nerves, 457.

  Injection of drugs into veins, 391.

  Inoculation for small-pox, 425, 439, 440.

  — — practised by Chinese and other nations from the earliest times, 45.

  Inoits, their magicians, 29.

  Insane persons worshipped as divine, 22.

  Insanity considered as divine, 21.

  — diagnosis of, 439.

  — treatment of, 363, 456, 467-470.

  Insects, immortality of, 21.

  Inspection of drug-shops, 317.

  Instruments, surgical, 244, 433.

  — of Hindu surgery, 115, 116.

  Intoxicants, universal, 46.

  Intoxication and the godhead, 47.

  — rationale of, 49, 50.

  Inunction used by ancient Greeks, 44.

  Iodide of potassium, 487.

  Iodine, 487.

  Ionicus of Sardis, 225.

  Ipecacuanha, 342.

  Iris, contractility of the, 390.

  Iritis, 463.

  Iron, its first use in medicine, 151, 221, 486.

  Iroquois, child-bearing amongst the, 52.

  Irrigation of wounds, 237.

  Irritability, doctrine of, 422, 426.

  Ishak Ben Soleiman (830-940), 296.

  Isis and Osiris, 58, 59, 60.

  Italy, anatomy in, 365, 366.

  Itch-goddess, 206.

  — -mite, 429.


  J.

  Jackson, J. H., 458.

  Jacobus Psychristus, 236.

  Jacques, Frère (c. 1697), 393.

  Jains, the, 102.

  Jalap, 38.

  James, R. (1703-1776), 428.

  Japanese medicine, 139.

  Javanese believers in animism, 14.

  Jaw, fracture of, 184.

  Jenner, E. (1749-1823), 439.

  Jenner, William (b. 1815), 454.

  Jewish physicians at Salerno, 309, 310.

  — religion, its comparative purity, 73.

  Jews, the medicine of the, 73.

  — the magic-mongers of Rome, 84.

  — their “golden age,” 84.

  Jíwaka, Buddha’s physician, 111.

  John of Salisbury on doctors, 306.

  Jones, 458.

  Joyliffe, George (died 1658), 381.

  Julian (A.D. 140), 219.

  Jung-Stilling (1740-1817), 463.

  Jurin, 420.


  K.

  Kabeiri gods, 75, 85, 151.

  Kaffirs, theories of disease amongst, 28.

  Kalevala of the Finns, 15.

  — the, 408.

  Kalmucks, their exorcism of disease, 28.

  Karens of Burmah trace diseases to the rainbow, 13.

  _Karma_, 110.

  Kava intoxication, 49.

  Keill, 420.

  Keith, 465.

  Kern, Von (1769-1829), 462.

  Kerner, 476.

  Khonds of Orissa and the small-pox, 12, 13.

  — all get royally drunk, 48.

  Kidney, the, 389.

  — fat of a bewitched man, 17.

  King’s evil, 371.

  Kircher, A. (1598-1680), 471.

  Kirghis cure disease by sorcery, 139.

  Knots (magic) as cures for disease, 89.

  — as charms, 257.

  — in magic, 408, 409.

  Knox, 461.

  Koch, R. (b. 1843), 474, 480.

  Kolarians of Bengal, their cure for diseases, 48.

  Kombinegherry tribe of Australia, 24.

  _Komil_, an intoxicating drink, 48.

  Koran, 293.

  Kousso, remedy for tape-worm, 36.


  L.

  Lacteals, the, 390.

  Laënnec, R. T. H. (1781-1826), 453.

  Lama doctors, 134, 135.

  Lamarck, 428, 452.

  Lancets, 245.

  Lancisi (c. 1718), 472.

  Langenbeck, 462.

  Langrish, B., 436.

  Larry, J. D. (1766-1842), 461.

  Latum, 473.

  Laudanum, 348, 382.

  Lavoisier, 448.

  Law, the, of Hippocrates, 178, 179.

  Lawrence, W. (1783-1867), 460.

  Lead, 487.

  Learning, the revival of, 336.

  Lectisternes at Rome, 208.

  Lectures on medicine, 305, 426.

  _Leech Book_, 276.

  Leeches first used in Europe, 214.

  — in Sanskrit works on surgery, 114.

  Leek juice, 285.

  Leeuwenhoeck (1632-1723), 389, 471.

  Legal medicine, 376, 454.

  — recognition of doctors in England, 353.

  Lemery, 419.

  Lemon juice in scurvy, 374.

  Lenormant, Professor, on disease-demons, 15, 139.

  Leonidas of Alexandria, 229.

  Leprosy, 183, 219, 249, 432.

  — Egyptian, cures for, 69.

  — treated with human blood, 131.

  Lettsom, J. C. (1744-1815), 428.

  Levasseur (c. 1540), 367.

  _Lex Cornelia_ punished negligent doctors, 210.

  Libavius, A. (1546-1616), 362, 419.

  Libraries, public, of Moors in Spain, 292.

  Licking as a fomentation, 3.

  Liebig, J. (1803-1873), 449.

  Life, indestructibility of, 21.

  Ligature of arteries, 224, 232, 235, 237, 296, 368.

  Light and heat, undulatory theory of, 337.

  Lime, 486.

  Linacre, Thomas (b. 1460), 346, 358.

  Linnæus, 472.

  Lisfranc, J. (1790-1847), 461.

  Lister, 472.

  Lister’s antiseptic surgery, 477.

  Liston (1794-1847), 460.

  Litany to fever, 87.

  — to disease-demons, 91.

  Literature, Greek medical, 204.

  Lithotomy, 169, 215, 216, 237, 272, 294, 316, 393, 426, 432, 433.

  Lithotrity, 459.

  — first practised, 198, 244.

  Littré, M., on miracles of healing, 320.

  Liver, 364.

  — eaten by demons, 12.

  Lock Hospital, 435.

  Locke, John (1632-1704), 388.

  Logwood, 38, 342.

  London Hospital medical school, 459.

  Lotze, R. H. (1817-1884), 451.

  _Louhiatar_, the Finnish disease-demon, 15.

  Louis (1723-1792), 433.

  Louis (1787-1872), 453.

  Lower, R. (1631-1691), 393.

  Lubbock, Sir John, on savages, 5.

  — on the surgery of the Society Islanders, 43.

  Lucius, 237.

  Lucky and unlucky days in medicine, 66.

  Ludford, Simon (c. 1563), 360.

  Ludwig, D. (c. 1671), 394.

  Lulli, Raymond (1235-1315), 322.

  Lunatics and demoniacs, 16.

  — treated by flogging, 278.

  “Luz,” nucleus of the resurrection of the body, 83.

  Lycanthropy, 236, 470.

  Lycus (anatomist), 209.

  Lymphatics, the, 381, 390.


  M.

  Machaon, son of Æsculapius, 149, 152, 153, 154, 155.

  Maclaurin, 459.

  Madagascar, theories of disease in, 13.

  Magendie, F. (1782-1855), 481.

  Magical _yarŭk_, 23.

  Magic in the treatment of diseases, 26, 27, 65, 86, 90, 129, 141,
    144, 271, 327, 351, 375, 376, 405.

  — Chaldæan, 87, 88.

  — Egyptian, 64, 65, 66.

  — of the Finns medicinal, 15.

  — in the Talmud, 83.

  Magnesia, 486.

  Magnus of Alexandria, 225.

  Maharncourt, Peter de, 323.

  Mahomet’s skill in medicine, 293.

  Maimonides (died 1198), 84, 298.

  Malagasy and the future life, 23.

  Malays have a special demon for each disease, 14.

  — sorcery of, 22.

  Malebranche (1638-1715), 379.

  Malgaigne, J. (1806-1865), 461.

  Malpighi, M. (1628-1694), 386, 389.

  Mandingoes, their idea of intoxication, 47.

  Mandiocca, fermentation of, 48.

  Mandrake, 133.

  Manioc plant, 36.

  Manna, 34.

  Manners and tone of good physicians, 312.

  Manteas (B.C. 250) first made a book of recipes, 198.

  Mantira people, their theory of disease, 12.

  Mantras, 110.

  _Māra_, a demon, 110.

  Marasmus, 234.

  Marcellus, Empiricus, 237, 395.

  Marghi people, their intoxicating drink, 48.

  Marinus (Roman anatomist), 209, 225.

  _Marro_, a charm, 24.

  Martialis (A.D. 150), 198.

  _Maruts_ or Smashers, 9.

  Masks to frighten small-pox deity, 129.

  Massage, 167, 212, 399.

  — practised by savages, 43, 44.

  _Mata_, small-pox goddess of India, 119, 120.

  Materialism, 451.

  Materia Medica, 220, 222, 225, 232, 307, 315, 323. 391, 392, 394.

  — of Egyptians, 69.

  — of India, 118.

  Mathematical school of medicine, 381, 419.

  Matico, 41.

  Matter, eternity of, 99, 159.

  Maudsley, H. (b. 1835), 457.

  Maxims of Welsh physicians, 283-285.

  Max Müller on the Esthonians, 9.

  _Maykeeka_, doctor of New South Wales, 27.

  Mayow, 423.

  “Me,” “the essential part of,” 23.

  Mead, R. (1673-1754), 431.

  Measles, goddesses of, in China, 128.

  _Mecasphim_ and _Casdim_, 91.

  Mechanical school of medicine, 420.

  Meckel, J. F. (1724-1774), 437.

  Medical education in Egypt, 69.

  — in India, 103.

  — in Rome, 209.

  — guild in Rome, 210.

  — literature as studied in Chaucer’s time, 329.

  — police, 429.

  Medicinal plants tenanted by good spirits, 14.

  Medicine and civilization, 8.

  — its origin, mysterious, 41.

  — and philosophy of Pythagoras, 162.

  — as the propitiation of evil spirits, 22.

  — as a totem, 32.

  — “the great,” 128.

  — dance, 32.

  — men, 17, 18, 22, 27, 30, 31, 33, 248, 404.

  — — their secret language, 30.

  Medicines, who discovered them? 7, 85.

  Medico-Chemical sect, the, 380, 419.

  Mediums, 10, 21, 30, 128.

  — as Chinese doctors, 128.

  Meges (B.C. 20), 214.

  Megrims, 286.

  Meibom, H. (1638-1700), 438.

  Melampus, the first physician, 151, 221.

  Melancholia, 236.

  Meletius (4th cent.), 236.

  Menders of souls, 30.

  Mental diseases, 209.

  _Mentik_, the cause of rice disease, 14.

  Menu, code of, 100.

  Mercury, 150, 350, 487.

  — in syphilis, 431.

  “Merry Andrew,” 358.

  Mesmer, F. A. (1733-1815), 430.

  Mesmerism, 235, 430, 457.

  Mesue the younger (about 1015), 296.

  Metallurgy, 323.

  Metempsychosis, 163.

  Methodists, school of the, 212, 214.

  Metschnikoff, 475.

  Mexicans, their beer, 46.

  Mexico, 341.

  _Mezûza_ wards off demons, 75.

  Microbes, 472.

  Microscope in anatomy, 389, 390, 471.

  Midwifery, 295, 313, 361.

  Midwives, 219, 272, 362.

  Millet-seed beer, 48.

  Millington, T. (c. 1676), 391.

  Mind cures, 481.

  Mineral medicines, 350, 486-488.

  — medicines used by Rhazes, 296.

  — waters, 400.

  Mineralogy, 293, 351.

  Minerva invoked by physicians, 149.

  Miracles of healing, 481.

  — at the tomb of St. Louis, 320.

  — of Tartar surgery, 138.

  Mistletoe in medicine, 34, 270.

  Mithridates the Great, 201.

  “Mithridaticum,” 201, 375.

  Mivart, George (b. 1827), 452.

  Mohammedan medicine, 287.

  _Molee_ charms, 27.

  Moly, the, of Homer, 249.

  Monasteries, rise of the, 300.

  Monastic botany, 369.

  Mondino, the father of modern anatomy (c. 1315), 325, 385.

  Mongolian peoples, 125.

  — Shamanism, 27.

  Mongols, their knowledge of anatomy, 135.

  Mongoose, its use of antidote to snake-poison, 3.

  Monotheism of the Bible, 74.

  Monro, A. (1697-1767), 436.

  Montagu, Lady W. (1690-1762), 439.

  Montaigne, Michel de (1533-1592), 351.

  Monte Cassino, 308, 309.

  Montpellier, its services to education, 305, 384.

  — school of, 303, 304, 384.

  Moonlight, injurious effects of, 81.

  Morand (1697-1773), 432.

  _Morbus sacer_, 181.

  Morgagni, G. B. (1682-1772), 437.

  Morgan, J. (1736-1789), 427.

  Moschion Diorthortes (c. 6th cent.), 242.

  Moses (B.C. 1490), 477.

  Mosques as universities, 292.

  Moss from a dead man’s skull, 397.

  Mott, V. (1785-1865), 462.

  Mountain peaks invoked, 16.

  Mouse-dung as a remedy, 285, 395.

  Muffet, Thomas (died 1604), 361.

  Müller (c. 1786), 472.

  Murchison, C. (1830-1879), 454.

  _Mūrŭp_, a disembodied spirit, 23.

  Musandinus, 315.

  Music in the treatment of disease, 165.

  Mussel shells as surgical instruments, 33.

  Mustard, 285.

  Myddvai, physicians of, 281, 283.

  Myrepsus, Nicholas (c. 1250), 323.

  Mystical school, 419.

  Mystic sign in Hindu medicine, 109.

  Myxoedema, 458.


  N.

  Naboth, M. (1675-1721), 437.

  Naegeli, 473.

  Nail-parings, superstitions concerning, 16, 143, 407.

  _Namtar_ and _Idpa_, 89.

  Nasal polypus, a punishment for sin, 82.

  Nasty physic first disguised by St. Hildegard, 307.

  Natural explanations the result of science, 24.

  — history, 225, 351, 361.

  — — studied by Aristotle, 192.

  — philosophy, 336, 377, 378, 379.

  — sciences, 448.

  Nature the physician of diseases, 176.

  Neatness of Indian surgery, 42.

  Necromancers, 335.

  — and tombs, 413.

  Needfire, 273.

  Needham, W. (died 1691), 425.

  Negro priest-physicians, 28.

  — religion is fetishism, 65.

  Negroes, their theories of disease, 28.

  Nelaton, A. (1807-1874), 461.

  Nemesius (4th cent.), 236.

  Neoplatonism, its influence on medicine, 235.

  Nepenthe, 70, 154.

  Nerves, 231, 232, 325, 364, 378, 389, 391, 436.

  — of sensation and motion recognised, 196, 224.

  Nervous disorders, 220, 236, 391.

  — system, structure of, 364, 367, 379.

  Nestorians, 288, 290, 291.

  Neuralgia, remedies for, 34.

  Newman, Cardinal, on the world’s benefactors, 7.

  Newton, Isaac (1642-1727), 378, 379, 420.

  New Zealand, theories of disease in, 13.

  _Nganga_, a medicine man of the Congo, 30.

  Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), 336.

  Nicholas Præpositus (c. 1140), 313.

  Nicholas V. (1389-1455), Pope, 336.

  Nicholls, F. (1699-1778), 436.

  Nightingale, Florence (b. 1820), 467.

  Nigritian character of Egyptian religion, 65.

  Nine secrets of the Brahmans, 101.

  Nineveh, excavations at, 91.

  _Nirvana_, 111.

  Nitrous oxide gas, 449, 464, 466.

  _Noijat_, sorcerers of Finland, 14.

  Nonnus (10th cent.), 302.

  “No Restraint” system, 457.

  Nosology, 104, 204.

  _Novum Organon_, the, 377, 378, 380.

  Nuck, A. (1650-1692), 390.

  Nukahivans, their use of kava, 49.

  Numa Pompilius, 205.

  Numbers, magic in, 258, 259.

  — the philosophy of, 162-164.

  — Pythagorean doctrine of, 162, 163, 216.

  Nursing reform, 467.

  Nux Vomica, 129.


  O.

  Oath of the Asclepiades, 169.

  Ob, an ancient Egyptian demon, 19.

  Obeah witchcraft of West Indies, 18, 19.

  Obi-men, 19.

  Obsession, 10.

  Obstetricians, 435, 479.

  Obstetrics, 218, 242, 243, 294, 296, 313, 361, 362, 429, 435.

  Occult philosophy, 337, 347, 368.

  Oculists in Rome, 210, 217.

  Odd and even days in diseases, 164.

  — days, the, 202.

  Odin a doctor, 272.

  Odyl, 430.

  Œons, 252.

  Offences against dead a cause of disease, 12, 20, 139.

  Ointment for sorcerers, 413.

  Old age described in Ecclesiastes, 80.

  — women, experiments on, 35.

  Olfactory nerves discovered, 337.

  Operations invented by ancient Hindus, 117.

  Ophthalmic surgery, 210, 211, 217, 296, 464.

  Ophthalmology, 463.

  Ophthalmoscope, 463.

  Opium-eaters, 47.

  Opium known to the ancients, 70, 154.

  — used to procure sleep, 201.

  Optic nerves, 364.

  — decussation of, 209.

  Oracle-spirits, 10.

  Orfila (1787-1853), 449.

  Orgies of Dionysus, 32, 150.

  Oribasius (A.D. 326-403), 235.

  “Original People” of Malay Peninsula, 22.

  Ormuzd, 141, 142, 143.

  Orphic mysteries, 163.

  Osteology, 216.

  _Oüycou_, a Carib liquor, 51.

  Ovariotomy of savages, 43, 45.

  — of civilized people, 361, 460.

  Owen, George (died 1558), 359.

  — Richard (1804-1892), 451.

  Oxford University, 339, 382, 383.


  P.

  Pacchioni, A. (1665-1726), 437.

  Pæon the healer, 66, 147.

  _Pagés_, priests of the Amazon, 26.

  Paget, J. (b. 1814), 460.

  Pakht, Egyptian god, 58.

  _Palal_, the supreme pontiff of the cow-religion, 48.

  Palfyn, J. (1649-1730), 435.

  Pallas Athene, goddess of health, 149.

  Palletta (1747-1823), 433.

  Palmer, Mr. E., on the medicine of Australian tribes, 33.

  Pancreas, duct of the, 391.

  Pander, 481.

  Pantheism, 97.

  Panum, 476.

  Paper invented by the Arabs, 294.

  Papuan Islanders and arrack, 47.

  Papyrus of Ebers, 58, 64, 67, 69, 71.

  — Harris, 65.

  — Lee and Rollin, 65.

  — Berlin, 68.

  Parabolani, an order of clerical nurses for sick, 241.

  Paracelsus (1493-1541), 331, 346, 347, 380, 419.

  Paracentesis in ascites, 177, 182.

  _Paraschistes_, Egyptian dissectors, 64.

  Parasites of skin diseases, 457.

  Paré, Ambroise (1509-1590), 368-376.

  Parker, 478, 479.

  Parsees, medicine of, 141.

  Parturition, medicines in, 37.

  Pascal (1623-1662), 379, 410.

  Pasteur, L. (b. 1820), 472, 474, 477, 480.

  _Pastophori_, 62.

  Patagonian wizards, 21, 22.

  Pathology, 227, 313, 437.

  — amongst Egyptians, 63.

  — of faith-healing, 320.

  Pathological school of medicine, 446.

  Patron saints of the Javanese, 14.

  Paulus Ægineta (c. 7th cent.), 211, 242.

  Pecquet, J. (1622-1674), 390.

  Peiresc, F. de (1580-1637), 390.

  Pelletier, 449.

  Pelops (anatomist), 209.

  Pemberton, H., 420.

  Penance as a remedy for disease, 101.

  Penny, Thomas (c. 1570), 361.

  Percussion of thorax, 177, 453.

  Percy (1754-1825), 433.

  Periapts, 254, 255.

  Periodeutes, the, 242.

  Perkuna, the thunder-god, 9.

  Perrault, 420.

  Persians employed Egyptian physicians, 71.

  Peru, 341, 383.

  Petit, J. L. (1674-1750), 432.

  Petrocellus (about 1035), 310.

  Petroleum, 275.

  Petrus Apono (1250-1315), 326.

  Peyer, J. C. (1653-1712), 437.

  Phagocyte theory, 475.

  Phallic worship, 76, 85.

  Pharmacopœias, 313, 363, 364, 392, 394.

  Pharmacy, 220, 236, 237, 296, 299, 315, 332, 350, 375, 391, 392, 419.

  — and medicine separated, 315, 317.

  — elegant, 307.

  — in ancient Egypt, 69.

  — in China, 133.

  — of Hindus, 115.

  Pherecydes (c. 609 B.C.), 158.

  Philinus of Cos (B.C. 280), 199, 200.

  Philip of Cæsarea, 234.

  Philonides, 213.

  Philosophy, modern, 377.

  — of the Greeks, 158.

  — of the Hindus, 97, 98.

  Philosophical Society of Oxford, 378.

  — transactions, the, 378.

  Philoxenos (about B.C. 260), 198.

  Philoxenus the oculist, 210.

  Philtres, 222, 413.

  Philumenus (c. A.D. 60), 218.

  Phlebitis, 434.

  Phlogiston, 423.

  Phœnicia, oculists of, 58.

  Phœnicians devoted to phallic worship, 85.

  Phosphorus, 487.

  Phrenology, 456.

  Phthisis, Hippocrates on, 182.

  Phylacteries of the Jews were amulets, 75, 86.

  Physical science, 160, 322.

  Physic-god represented by doctor, 109.

  Physicians always originally wizards, 26, 86.

  — and surgeons of primitive man, 40.

  — behaviour, 103, 312.

  — College of, 357.

  Physics, 351.

  Physiological medicine, 446.

  Physiology, 212, 228, 336, 367, 381, 384, 390, 420, 436.

  _Piayas_, diviners of North America, 26.

  Pig, anatomy of the, 313.

  Pigeons’ dung in pregnancy, 131.

  Pills of precious stones, 130.

  — in Egyptian pharmacy, 69.

  Pincers, 244, 245.

  Pinel, P. (1745-1826), 456.

  Pitard, Jean (1228-1315), 323.

  Pitcairn, A. (1652-1713), 419, 425.

  Pitcairn, W. (1711-1791), 438.

  Pius II., _see_ Æneas Sylvius.

  Plain cooking, 15.

  Plants, the food of ghosts, 23.

  — the homes of the departed, 14, 46.

  — medicinal, well understood by Australian tribes, 33.

  Plant-worship, 32, 46, 142, 269, 270.

  Plastic operations, 216, 462.

  Platearius, Johannes, 314.

  Platearius, Matthæus, 314.

  Plato (B.C. 427-347), 185.

  Platter, Felix (1536-1614), 363.

  Plenciz, M. A. (c. 1762), 472.

  Pliny the elder (A.D. 23-79), his natural history, 225.

  Plotinus (A.D. 205-270), 235.

  Pneumatists, sect of the, 227.

  Podalirius, son of Æsculapius, 149, 152, 153, 155.

  Poisons, action of, 431.

  — and poisoning, 439.

  — of a spiritual kind, 23.

  — science of, 449, 454.

  Poisoning, art of, 323, 324, 404, 439.

  — by Obeah-men, 19.

  — secret, 222, 223.

  Poisonous plants the homes of demons, 14, 46.

  — used as food when boiled, 34.

  Polynesian disease spirits, 12.

  Polypus of nose, 182, 316.

  Pomegranate, 237.

  Possession, demoniacal, 10, 20, 86, 99, 138, 143, 403.

  Potash, 487.

  Potassium, 487.

  Pott, P. (1713-1788), 433.

  Poultices, use of, by savages, 33.

  “Powder of sympathy,” 397.

  Prairie Indians trace all diseases to one demon, 13.

  Praxagoras of Cos (4th cent. B.C.), 192.

  Precious stones as charms, 75.

  Pre-existence believed by Empedocles, 161.

  Pregnancy, ceremonies in, 144.

  — changes induced by, 219.

  Prescriptions of Egyptian physicians, 66, 67.

  Preventive medicine, 100.

  Priest and medicine-man formerly one, 8, 86.

  Priest-magicians of Egypt, 62.

  — physicians, 27, 30, 86, 270, 271.

  Priests of the Jews, no monopoly of medicine, 75.

  Priestley, J., 448, 464.

  Primitive man as seen in Australian aborigines, 24.

  Primrose, James, 389.

  _Principia_, 379.

  Probe, the, 245.

  Prognosis, 107.

  — in Hippocratic teaching, 176.

  Prometheus, 151.

  Prophetical intoxication, 31.

  Propitiation of disease-demons, 16, 136.

  — of gods for cure of diseases, 270.

  Protestantism in science, 346.

  Proteus signifies matter, 165.

  Prussic acid, 222, 436.

  Psychical school, 419, 421.

  Ptah, Egyptian god, 58.

  Ptolemy Soter patron of the arts and sciences, 194.

  Ptomaines, 476.

  Public sanitary service of Rome, 210.

  _Pulque_, 46.

  Pulse, doctrine of the, 196.

  — the, in Hindu medicine, 115.

  — Galen’s description of, 113, 232.

  Purgatives, 43, 156, 314.

  Purging discovered by Melampus, 156.

  Purkinje, 481.

  Puschmann, T., 467.

  Putrefaction, 471, 472.

  Puyung of the Malay forest tribes, 22.

  Pythagoras (born 582 B.C.), 162.

  — learned his doctrine from Oriental philosophers, 99.

  Pythagorean school at Crotona, 161.


  Q.

  Quain, R., 467.

  Quarantine, 339.

  Quassia-wood, 38.

  “Quid pro quo,” origin of the expression, 314.

  Quinine, 342, 449.

  Quintus (Roman anatomist), 209, 225.


  R.

  Rabbits do not vomit with ipecacuanha, 4.

  Rabelais, François (c. 1490-1553), 352.

  Radcliffe, John (1650-1714), 425.

  Radishes to prevent hydrophobia, 285.

  Rain, prayers to, 9.

  Rainy season and the gods, 29.

  Ramus (c. 1562), 368.

  Rasori, G. (1762-1837), 445.

  Rats amputate their own legs, 3.

  Recipe books, 313, 323.

  Recurrent nerves, when discovered, 209.

  Reflex action, 457.

  Reform of medicine, 345, 391.

  Reformation, its effect on medicine, 369.

  Reichenbach, Von, 430.

  Reimarus, J. A. H. (1729-1814), 463.

  Re-incarnation believed by Empedocles, 161.

  Remak, R. (1815-1865), 457.

  Remedies used by animals, 3.

  Repentance as a cure of disease, 88.

  Resection of jaw, 316.

  — of joints, 460, 461.

  Reuchlin, Johann (1455-1522), 337.

  Revival of learning, 337.

  Rhazes (9th cent.), 295, 296.

  Rheumatism first described, 214.

  — remedies in, 37, 38, 43.

  — miraculous cures of, 481.

  Rhinoplastic surgery, 367.

  Rhiwallon (Welsh physician, 13th cent.), 283.

  Rhubarb first introduced, 243.

  Richard Fitz-Nigel, 307.

  Richardson, B. W. (b. 1828), 480.

  Richter (1742-1812), 433.

  Rickets, 389.

  _Rig Veda_, 47, 96, 97.

  Rishis or Hindu sages, 100.

  Robert of Gloucester on Anglo-Norman surgery, 306.

  Robertson, Dr., on the progress of man, 6.

  Roeschlaub, J. A. (1768-1835), 446.

  Roger of Parma (c. 1210), 316.

  Rokitansky, K. von (1804-1878), 454.

  Rolando, 316.

  Romanes, G. F., 452.

  Roman medicine, 205.

  Rose water, 302.

  Rosenkreuz, Christian, 370.

  Rosicrucians, 370.

  Rosy Cross, Society of, 370.

  Rousset, François (about 1581), 362.

  Roux, P. J. (1780-1854), 461.

  Royal Society, the, 380.

  Rudbeck, O. (1630-1702), 390.

  Rufus of Ephesus (A.D. 98-117), 209, 223.

  Ruini, C. (c. 1598), 375.

  Rune lays, 252.


  S.

  Sabatier (1723-1811), 433.

  Sabbath, origin of, was Accadian, 95.

  Sabines, the, 205.

  Sacred plants, 46, 48, 142.

  Sacrifices of tobacco to the sun, 48.

  Sacrificial medicine, 14, 48.

  Saffron, 285.

  Sage, 286.

  Saint Vitus’s dance, 331.

  Saints as healers, 333.

  Sal-ammoniac, 487.

  Sala, 419.

  Salaries of court physicians, 164, 211.

  Salerno, school of, 308, 349.

  — in decay, 318.

  Saliva, magic properties of, 259.

  — superstitions of South Sea Islanders concerning, 17.

  Salivary glands first described, 236.

  Salt used as medicine by animals, 3.

  Salve against goblins and temptations, 278.

  Samoans, their theory of diseases, 21.

  Samoyed tribes, 86.

  Samulus, 270.

  Sanderson, J. B. (b. 1828), 480.

  Sanitary precautions in the East, 77.

  — reform, 357.

  — science, 477.

  Santals of Bengal think good spirits enter fruit trees, 14.

  Santorini, G. (1681-1737), 436.

  Saracens, medicine of the, 291.

  — their sympathy with Jews, 84.

  Sarpi, P. (1552-1623), 390.

  Sarsaparilla, 342, 375.

  Sassafras, 342, 374.

  Sauvages, De (1706-1767), 422, 424.

  Savages are like primitive man, 5.

  — require large doses, 37.

  — their theory of evil spirits, 20, 139.

  — their voracity, 38.

  — weak as compared with civilised man, 38.

  _Sawan_, the cause of convulsions, 14.

  Saws, 244.

  Saxon leechdoms, 252.

  Scammony, 275.

  Scapegoat of the Jews, 15.

  Scapulars of Catholics, 75.

  Scarabs, 250.

  Scarification practised by savages, 33.

  Scarpa, A. (1748-1832), 433.

  Schelling (1775-1854), 450.

  Schizomycetes, 473.

  Schmidt, J. A., 463.

  Schmucker (1712-1786), 433.

  Scholasticism, the parent of modern science, 239.

  Schools of medical theory, 418.

  Schroeder, 472.

  Schuk, F. (1804-1865), 462.

  Schulze, F., 472.

  Schwann, 472, 473.

  Science, age of, 441.

  Scientific medicine, 393.

  Scourges and plagues, incantations against, 15, 86.

  Scribonius Largus (A.D. 45), 214.

  Scripts as medicine, 260, 261.

  Scrofula, 183, 370.

  Scudamore, C. (1779-1849), 467.

  Scurvy, 374.

  — banished the fleets, 427.

  Scythian remedy for hunger, 197.

  Scythians, the, 203.

  Seamen, diseases of, 427.

  Seat of the soul, 196, 379.

  “Security” offered for sick persons in China, 127.

  Seer, the evolution of, 9.

  Seidlitz waters, 424.

  Selago, a sacred plant, 270.

  Selmi, 476.

  Semitic and Aryan intellects compared, 292.

  Semmelweis, L. J. P. (1818-1865), 479.

  Seneca on doctors, 224.

  Seneka, 342.

  Senna introduced, 296.

  Separation of medicine from surgery, 305.

  Septenary theory, 164.

  Septine, 480.

  Serapion of Alexandria (B.C. 270), 199, 201.

  Serapion the elder, 295.

  — the younger (about 1070), 296.

  Serapis, Egyptian god, 59, 60.

  Serpentaria, 342.

  Serpent on the rod of Æsculapius, 149.

  — the cause of diseases, 142.

  Servetus (1511-1553), 367, 385.

  Set, representative of physical evil amongst Egyptians, 58.

  Setons, 237, 316.

  Sex of bees, 391.

  Sexual organs of plants, 391.

  Shadows on souls, 9.

  _Shaitan_, the cause of disease, 138.

  Shamans of Northern Asia, 27, 86, 125, 139.

  Shampooing, 44.

  Sharp, S. (1700-1778), 433.

  _Shastres_, 100.

  Siam, its religion and theory of disease, 14.

  Siberians, 86.

  Sickness, remedies for, 34, 37.

  Siebold (1736-1807), 433.

  Sieveking, E. H. (b. 1816), 455.

  Signatures, doctrine of, 133, 257, 416, 417.

  Silk-worm disease, 473, 474.

  Silver, 488.

  _Similia similibus_ theory, 234.

  Simon, 478, 479.

  Simpson, J. Y., 465.

  Sioux Indian medicine, 32.

  Siva afflicts Hindu children with epilepsy, 120.

  Skatological medicine, 394-397.

  Skeleton made by a Rabbi, 83.

  — of ivory, 114.

  Skin diseases, 455.

  Skoda, J. (1803-1881), 455.

  Slaves in Roman world, 239.

  Slavonic rustics exorcise spirits with urine, 30.

  Sleeping and dreams, 20, 22.

  Sloane, Hans (1660-1753), 425.

  Small-pox, 295, 297, 432.

  — in Timor-laut, 28.

  — caused by demons, 12, 129.

  — exorcised by urine, 30.

  — goddess, 12, 13, 119, 120, 128, 129.

  Smellie, W. (1608-1763), 435.

  Smith, S., 478.

  Snake-bite, treatment of, by savages, 33.

  — remedies for, 108.

  — wine, 131.

  Snellen, H., 463.

  Snipe, the, as a surgeon, 3.

  Society Islanders and disease-demons, 21.

  — their skill in surgery, 43.

  Socrates on invalidism, 185.

  Soda, 486.

  Sodium, 486.

  Softening of the brain, 456.

  Solomon composed incantations to cure diseases, 78.

  _Soma_ as a drink and a deity, 47.

  Sonnenschein, 476.

  Soranus of Ephesus, 218.

  Sorcery in Accadia, 86.

  — in Australia, 12.

  — a cover for ignorance, 26.

  — laws against, 405.

  Soul, immortality of, 8.

  — origin of, 339.

  — the seat of, 196, 232, 379.

  Souls as shadows, 9.

  — theory of, 20-23.

  Spallanzani, 472.

  Spears spiritually poisoned, 23.

  Specialism of Egyptian medicine, 63.

  Speculum, the, 177.

  — anciently used, 219, 244.

  Speech, faculty of, its seat, 458.

  Spells, 90, 237.

  Spencer, Herbert (b. 1820), 452.

  — on plant-worship, 47.

  Spermatozoa discovered, 389.

  Spiders as amulets, 256.

  — as disease-demons, 30.

  Spigel (1578-1625), 364.

  Spinoza (1632-1677), 379.

  Spirits, belief in, universal, 20, 139.

  — of material objects, 24.

  — of weapons, 23.

  — their influence in healing, 33.

  — distilled, invented, 326.

  Spiritual spears, 23.

  Spleen, the, 389.

  — removed by the Rabbis, 83.

  Splenic fever, 474.

  Splints, 244.

  — use of, in the surgery of savages, 33, 41.

  Spontaneous generation theory, 472, 473.

  Sprengel, Kurt (1766-1833), 466.

  Springs, medicinal, 272.

  Spry, E., 428.

  Spurzheim, C. (1776-1832), 456.

  Squill as a diuretic, 222.

  Stahl (1660-1734), 421, 423.

  Stammering, treatment of, 235.

  Stark, W. (1742-1770), 429.

  State medical service in Rome, 210.

  Steam power, 337.

  Sterility, 242.

  Sternum trepanned, 316.

  Stethoscope, invention of, 453.

  Stieglitz (1767-1840), 446.

  Stolen property as a charm, 265.

  Stone, cutting for the, 44, 45, 393.

  Stones as charms, 257, 394.

  — healing by, 33.

  Storm gods of India, 9.

  _Strictus et laxus_, 214.

  Stromeyer, G. F. L. (1804-1876), 462.

  Strumous glands, 229, 235.

  Styptics, discovery of, 41.

  Subordination of surgery to medicine, 305.

  Sucking diseases out of patients, 22, 27, 28, 33.

  Sulphur, 273, 487.

  — as a disinfectant in the Odyssey, 154.

  — first used for skin diseases, 201.

  _Suonetar_, the healer, 15.

  Supernatural invoked when natural means fail, 26.

  Superstition, absence of, from the Psalms of David, 74.

  — origin of, 24.

  — originally engrafted on medicine, 26, 351, 403, 405.

  Superstitions, medical, 327.

  — their universality, 18.

  — in Chinese medicine, 132.

  Suppositories, 177.

  Surgeons to be propitiated, 103.

  Surgery, 228, 235.

  — French, 368, 433.

  — a scientific profession, 434.

  — savage, 40, 41.

  — of the Brahmans, 103.

  — of the Hindus, 114, 117, 118.

  — of Egyptians, 70.

  — older than medicine, 41, 104.

  — subordinated to medicine, 305.

  Surgical instruments of the Bible, 79.

  Susruta, 103, 289.

  Sutherland, 478.

  _Sutras_, commentaries on the Vedas, 100.

  Sutton, Thomas (d. 1835), 456.

  _Svastika_, the mystic, 134.

  Swaine, 474.

  Swammerdam, J. (1637-1686), 391.

  Sweating Sickness, 338, 356, 357, 360.

  Swieten, Van (1700-1772), 430, 437.

  Sydenham Society, 467.

  Sydenham, Thomas (1624-1689), 381, 383.

  Sylvanus, a demon of the lying-in chamber, 54.

  Sylvaticus, 327.

  Sylvius (De la Boë) (1614-1672), 380.

  Syme, J. (1799-1870), 460.

  Sympathetical cures, 397.

  Sympathetic nerve, 389.

  Syphilis, 340.

  — less frequent amongst Jews than Christians, 76.

  Systems of modern medicine, 445.


  T.

  Tablets on which were recorded cures in temples, 167.

  Tagliacozzi, G. (1546-1599), 367, 368.

  Tahiti people, their fermented liquor, 49.

  Tait, Lawson, 460.

  Taliacotian operation, 367.

  Talismans, 29, 32, 86, 247, 260.

  Talmud, surgery of, 82.

  — pathology of, 82.

  Talmudists, medicine of the, 82.

  Tamils of Ceylon, sorcery of the, 408.

  Tapeworm, treatment for, 228, 237.

  Tapping for dropsy, 245.

  Tarantism, 339.

  Tarawan folk, sorcery of, 22.

  Tarsus, bones of, 337.

  Tartars, their theory of fevers, 31.

  Tar water, 177.

  Tasmanians think diseases caused by devils, 13, 21.

  Tauut, Egyptian god same as Thoth, _q.v._, 58.

  Taylor, A. S. (1806-1880), 454.

  _Tchutgours_, Tartar disease-demons, 135, 136.

  Tea intoxication, 50.

  Teeth-worms, 414, 415.

  Telescopes, 389.

  Temples of Æsculapius, 149, 157, 168.

  _Teraphim_ of Laban, 75.

  Teutons, medicine of the, 272.

  Thales of Miletus (circ. 609 B.C.), 158.

  _Tharragarry_, evil spirits of Australians, 24.

  Themison of Laodicea (B.C. 50), 213, 214.

  Theon of Alexandria, 226.

  Theophrastus (born 371 B.C.), the originator of the science
     of plants, 193.

  Theories of disease, 12, 86, 270.

  Theosophy, 337.

  Theosophists of Chaldæa, 90.

  Therapeutics, 392.

  — Galen on, 232.

  Therapeutists, or Healers, 82.

  Theriaca (a famous cure all), 218, 220, 221.

  Thermometry, clinical, 439, 455.

  Thessalus of Tralles (A.D. 60), 218.

  Theurgic healing, 66.

  Theurgy of Egypt, 61, 66.

  Thibet, physicians of, 134.

  Thibetans, their theory of disease, 16, 249.

  Thilenius, G. M., 435.

  _Thimmool_, a magical weapon, 24.

  Thompson, H. (b. 1820), 460.

  Thorbern, 391.

  Thor’s hammer, 134.

  Thoth, Egyptian god of letters and medicine, 58, 60, 65, 150.

  Thrax (A.D. 457-474), 236.

  Thrita, the first physician of Zoroastrians, 142.

  Thunder, prayer to, 9.

  Thymus gland, 361.

  Thyroid gland, functions of, 458.

  _Tietajat_, the learned men of Finland, 14.

  Timor-laut, fish poisoning in, 35.

  — prophylactic against small-pox in, 28.

  Timor tribes, their theories of disease, 31.

  Titans, discoverers of medicinal herbs, 85.

  _Tla-guill-augh_, a medicine man, 17.

  Toad and the plantain, 3.

  Tobacco, 369.

  — the “sacred herb” of Peru, 48.

  Toddy of the cocoa-nut palm, 49.

  Tomahawk, the spirit of, 23.

  _Toogi-toogi_, 43.

  Toothache, charm for, 286.

  “Toothache shrub,” 38.

  Totemism, 32.

  Touching for the evil, 371, 372.

  “Touching pieces,” 373.

  Tourniquet, the, 431, 432.

  Toynbee, 478.

  Toxicology, 105, 449, 454.

  Tracheotomy, 213, 228, 235, 244.

  Transference of disease, 414.

  Transfusion of blood, 350.

  Travers, B. (1783-1858), 459.

  Trepan, the, 244, 316.

  Trepanning the skull, 44, 45, 206, 285.

  Trephine, the, 244.

  Trephining the skull, 113, 184, 216.

  “Triacle,” 275.

  Triads, the Welsh, 280, 281.

  Tribal magic, 24.

  Trithemius (c. 1500), 346, 347.

  Troja (1747-1827), 433.

  Trotula (about 1059), 313.

  Trousseau, A. (1801-1866), 456.

  Tuberculosis, 429, 453, 454.

  Tude plant, a sacred shrub, 48.

  Tumours, malignant, 316.

  Turanian priests of magic, 138.

  Turkish bath, 43.

  Turner, D. (1667-1741), 431.

  Turpentine in hæmorrhage, 431.

  Tylor, Dr. E. B., on animism, 8, 10.

  — on primitive man, 6.

  Tyndall, J. (b. 1820), 472, 480.

  Typhus fever, 363.

  Tyson, E. (d. 1708), 438.


  U.

  Unburied men as vampires, 16.

  Uncleanness of women, 143, 144.

  Universal medicine, the, 100.

  Universities, rise of the, 300, 303.

  Upanishads, the, 97.

  Urea, 436.

  Urethra, operations on, by savages, 43, 77.

  Urethrotomy, 216, 228.

  Urine, use of, in medicine, 67, 396.

  — its use in exorcism, 30, 78.

  Uroscopy, 294, 323.

  Uterus, dissection of the, 219.

  Uvula, amputation of, 391.


  V.

  Vaccination, 439.

  Valingen, F. de (1725-1805), 428.

  Valsalva, A. (1666-1723), 436.

  Valves of the heart, 361.

  — of the veins, 364, 386.

  Vambery on opium-eating, 47.

  Vampires, 16.

  Vapour baths in dropsy introduced by Chrysippus, 195.

  Varicose veins, 183.

  Varolius, C. (1545-1575), 364.

  Vascular system understood by Diogenes of Apollonia, 160.

  Vaso-motor nerves, 436, 457.

  Vazimbas inflict diseases in Madagascar, 13.

  Vectius Vallens (circ. A.D. 37), 214.

  Vedas, the, 98, 99.

  Vedic hymns, 47, 97.

  Veins, anatomy of, 160.

  Velpeau, A. (1795-1867), 461.

  Vervain, 270.

  Vesalius, Andrew (1514-1564), 365, 366.

  Veterinary medicine of Hindus, 102, 117.

  — of the Mongols, 135.

  Vicary, Thomas (c. 1530), 358.

  Vicq d’Azyr, F. (1748-1794), 391.

  Vidus Vidius, 374.

  Vienna school, 431, 454, 455.

  Vieussens, R. (c. 1684), 389, 419.

  Vinario, 330.

  Virchow, R. (b. 1821), 455.

  Virgil, sorcery in, 405.

  Viridet, 419.

  Vision, discovery of the laws of, 337.

  _Vis Medicatrix Naturæ_, 176.

  Vital-fluid school, 419, 421.

  Vivisection of animals, 379, 483, 485.

  — in magic, 251, 254, 279, 286.

  — of human beings, 195, 197, 200, 218, 373, 374.

  Vocal organs, anatomy of, 364, 391.

  Volta, 450.

  Vomiting the devil, 30.

  Votive tablets in Greek temples, 157, 168.


  W.

  Wagner, 481.

  Wäinämöinen, conqueror of disease-demons, 15.

  Wallace, Alfred R. (b. 1822), 452.

  Walther, Von (1782-1849), 462.

  Wardrop, J. (1782-1869), 459.

  Wardroper, Mrs. (d. 1892), 467.

  Warts, superstitions concerning, 415, 416.

  Water of baptism, its magical properties, 272.

  Waters, mineral, 400.

  Watje, their theories of disease, 28.

  Watson, Thomas (1792-1882), 454.

  Watson, W. (1715-1787), 427.

  Wax-figures in sorcery, 66.

  “Weapon salve,” 398.

  Wells, poisoning of, 35.

  Wells, Spencer (b. 1818), 460.

  Welsh medicine, 280.

  West Indies, sorcery in, 22.

  Wharton, J. (died 1673), 389.

  Whewell on medical theories, 418-420.

  Whistler, D. (died 1684), 389.

  White, C. (c. 1768), 434.

  White magic, 66, 409.

  Whooping cough, 363.

  Wichmann, J. E. (1740-1802), 429.

  Wilks, S. (b. 1824), 455.

  Willan, R. (1757-1812), 427.

  Willis, Thomas (1621-1675), 391.

  Wilson, E. (1809-1884), 460.

  Wine, 150.

  _Wingo_, an Australian superstition, 17.

  Winslow, Forbes, 457.

  Winston, Thomas (b. 1575), 381.

  Wirsung, G. (died 1643), 391.

  Wiseman, Richard (1625-1686), 389.

  Witchcraft as cause of disease, 12, 16, 403, 405.

  — and medicine, 403.

  Wizards of Australia, 23.

  — of Patagonia, 21.

  Wizard-priests, 27, 29, 30.

  Woi-worŭng, an Australian tribe, 23.

  Women as poisoners, 324, 404.

  — diseases of, 219, 242, 243, 294, 313, 361, 429.

  — doctors, 271, 307, 313, 326.

  — forbidden by Athenians to practise medicine, 202.

  —, Jewish laws concerning, 77.

  Woolaston, W. H. (1766-1828), 449.

  Worm, Olaus, 394.

  Wormian bones, the, 364.

  Worms, remedies for, 36, 237.

  Worm-seed, 36.

  Worship of plants arose from their intoxicating influence, 47.

  Wotton, Edward, 360.

  Wren, Sir C. (1632-1723), 391.

  Wunderlich (1815-1877), 455.


  X.

  Xenocrates of Aphrodisias (c. 70 A.D.), 395.

  Xenophon of Cos (A.D. 53), 198.

  _Xirac_, a fermented liquor of the Rio Negro, 48.


  Y.

  _Yambo_, the spirit of man, 23.

  Yeast-plant, 452, 473.

  Yonge, J. (1646-1721), 431.

  Young, Thomas (1773-1829), 463.

  _Yountoo_ charms, 27.

  Youths, savage, initiations of, 43.


  Z.

  Zacchia, P. (c. 1621), 376.

  Zamolxis, 164.

  Zedekiah, a Jewish physician, 84.

  _Zend Avesta_, 47, 141, 143.

  Zenon, 225.

  Zerbis, G., de, 337.

  Zinc, 350.

  Zoology, 391.

  Zoroaster, 141, 143.

  — and his teaching emanated from India, 99.

  Zuelza, 476.

  Zulus, their theory of diseases, 21, 22.

  — trace diseases to the rainbow and evil spirits, 13.

  Zwelfer, J. (c. 1651), 394.

  Zymotic diseases, 480.


    Butler & Tanner. The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.




FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Provincial Medical Journal_, March, 1892.

[2] _Histoire de Medicine depuis son Origine, etc._

[3] Pratt’s _British Grasses_, pp. 69, 125.

[4] Vol. ii. p. 384.

[5] Miss Gordon Cumming.

[6] _Science Gossip._

[7] Morley’s _Life of Cornelius Agrippa_, vol. i. p. 129.

[8] Ringer, _Materia Medica_, Fifth Edition, p. 454.

[9] Berdoe, _The Healing Art_, p. 18.

[10] _Prehistoric Times_, Fifth Edition, p. 430.

[11] _Primitive Culture_, vol. i. p. 32.

[12] _Hist. America_, Book IV. chap. ii.

[13] _Primitive Folk_, p. 10.

[14] Nordenskiöld, _Voyage of the Vega_.

[15] _India’s Teaching_, p. 192.

[16] _Tr. Eth. Soc._, vol. iii. p. 235. Grey, _Australia_, vol. ii. p.
337. Boniveh, _Tasmanians_, pp. 183, 195.

[17] _Journ. Ind. Archip._, vol. i. p. 307.

[18] _Journ. Ind. Archip._, vol. iii. p. 110, vol. iv. p. 194.

[19] Taylor, _New Zealand_, pp. 48, 137.

[20] _Folk Medicine_, p. 3.

[21] _Ibid._, p. 7.

[22] Hodgson, _Abor. of India_, p. 170; cited in _Folk Med._, p. 10.

[23] _Folk Med._, p. 11.

[24] _Ibid._, p. 11.

[25] Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, vol. ii. p. 114.

[26] Hunter, _Rural Bengal_, p. 210.

[27] Dr. E. B. Tylor, art. “Demonology,” _Ency. Brit._

[28] _Ency. Brit._, vol. iv. p. 58.

[29] _Ibid._

[30] _Ibid._, vol. xiii. p. 607.

[31] _Ibid._, vol. xxi. p. 853.

[32] _Western Africa_, p. 217.

[33] Lenormant, _Chaldean Magic and Sorcery_, pp. 258-262.

[34] _Kalevala_, 15th runa.

[35] Sir Joseph Hooker, _Himalayan Journals_, Ed. 1891, p. 416.

[36] Lang, _Custom and Myth_, p. 208.

[37] _Folk Medicine_, pp. 17, 18.

[38] E. Palmer, _Notes on Australian Tribes_.

[39] _The Medical Profession in Ancient Times_ (New York, 1856).

[40] _Denmark, its Hygiene and Demography_, 1891, p. 57.

[41] _The Races of Man_, p. 292.

[42] _Proc. Roy. Soc._, xxvii. 309, 1878.

[43] Tylor’s _Anthropology_, p. 344.

[44] Tylor’s _Anthropology_, p. 354.

[45] Reclus, _Primitive Folk_, p. 103.

[46] Dr. E. B. Tylor, art. “Demonology,” _Ency. Brit._

[47] Ellis, _Polyn. Res._, vol. i. pp. 363, 395; vol. ii. pp. 193, 274.
Schoolcraft, part iv. p. 49.

[48] Roman Paul, xix., in _Life of Colon_.

[49] D’Orbigny, _L’Homme Américain_, vol. ii. pp. 207, 231 (Caribs).

[50] _Primitive Culture_, vol. ii. p. 131.

[51] _Races of Man_, p. 61.

[52] Dr. G. W. Parker, on “The People of Madagascar,” _Journ. Anthrop.
Inst._, 1883, p. 478.

[53] _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, 1884, p. 187.

[54] A. H. Keane, _On the Botocudos_.

[55] _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, 1884, p. 293.

[56] _Ibid._, p. 475.

[57] _Principles of Sociology_, vol. i. p. 222.

[58] Clem. Alex., _Miscellanies_, book vi.

[59] _Ibid._

[60] _History of America_, book iv. 7.

[61] Wallace, _Travels on the Amazon_, chap. xvii.

[62] _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, 1884, p. 10.

[63] Forrest, _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, vol. iii. p. 319.

[64] _Origin of Civilization_, p. 26.

[65] _Nat. His. Man._, p. 535.

[66] Reclus, _Primitive Folk_, p. 232.

[67] _Primitive Folk_, p. 237.

[68] _Ibid._, p. 80.

[69] Th. Halm, _Globus_, xviii.

[70] Landas, _Superstitions Annamites_.

[71] _Primitive Folk_, pp. 83, 84.

[72] _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, 1884, p. 473.

[73] Prof. Monier Williams, and Reclus, _Primitive Folk_, p. 234.

[74] _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, 1884, p. 427.

[75] Starcke, _Primitive Family_, p. 32.

[76] _Primitive Folk_, p. 234.

[77] _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, 1884, p. 299.

[78] _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, 1884, p. 310.

[79] _National Dispensatory_, p. 986.

[80] _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, 1884, p. 251.

[81] _Ibid._, p. 251.

[82] _Ibid._, p. 11.

[83] _Ibid._, p. 132.

[84] _Wh. Jour._, vol. iv., 2nd sec., p. 519.

[85] _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, 1884, p. 132.

[86] Herbert Spencer’s _Principles of Sociology_, vol. i. p. 50.

[87] Sydenham’s Works, vol. i. Preface to _Medical Observations_.

[88] See _British Medical Journal_, July 30th, 1892, p. 238.

[89] _Journ. Anthrop. Inst._, 1884, p. 295.

[90] Lubbock, _Prehistoric Times_, p. 483. Ellis, vol. ii. p. 277.

[91] Massage, by W. E. Green, M.R.C.S. (_Prov. Med. Jour._, May 2nd,
1892, p. 242).

[92] _Hist. de la Méd._, vol. vii. p. 1.

[93] See also Surgeon Fletcher’s report in the _U.S. Geographical and
Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region_, vol. v. 1882.

[94] _Hist. de la Méd._, tome vii. p. 208.

[95] Baas, _Hist. Med._, p. 70.

[96] _Ibid._

[97] _Ibid._, p. 76.

[98] _Lettres édifiantes et curieuses_, tom. xxi. p. 5. Hottentots and
negroes in Central Africa, according to Livingstone, have from remote
times practised inoculation in a similar manner.

[99] _Hist. de la Méd._, vol. vii. p. 34.

[100] Pettigrew’s _Medical Superstition_, p. 24.

[101] _Principles of Sociology_, Herbert Spencer, vol. i. p. 374.

[102] _Ibid._

[103] _Meliosma simplicifolia_, or _Millingtonia_.

[104] Reclus, _Primitive Folk_, p. 222.

[105] Wallace, _Travels on the Amazon_, chap. xvii.

[106] Barth, _Travels in Africa_, Ed. 1890, p. 416.

[107] Reclus, _Primitive Folk_, p. 136.

[108] _Ibid._, p. 251.

[109] Hooker, _Himalayan Journals_, Ed. 1891, p. 204.

[110] Blavatsky, _Caves and Jungles of Hindostan_, p. 13.

[111] Quoted in the article on “Drunkenness” in _Ency. Brit._

[112] See _Third Annual Report of the Massachusetts Board of Health_.

[113] _Early Hist. Mankind_, p. 288.

[114] _Hist. Gén. des Antilles habiteés par les Français_: Paris, 1667,
vol. ii. p. 371, etc.

[115] _Early Hist. Mankind_, p. 294.

[116] iii. 4, 17.

[117] Pt. iii., Canto i.

[118] Notes to his edition of _Hudibras_, 1744, _loc. cit._

[119] Starcke, _The Primitive Family_, p. 52.

[120] _Ibid._

[121] Vol. ii. p. 275.

[122] Reclus, _Primitive Folk_, p. 202.

[123] _Ibid._, p. 192.

[124] _Natural History_, Book xxviii., ch. 23.

[125] _De Civ._, Lib. vi. 9.

[126] _Hist. Med._, Eng. Trans., p. 16.

[127] Le Clerc, _Hist. de la Médicine_.

[128] Lib. de Iside et Osiride.

[129] _Official Guide Brit. Mus._, “Egyptian Antiquities,” pp. 107-8.

[130] Clem. Alex., _Strom._, lib. vi. p. 196.

[131] vii. 56.

[132] _Ancient Egyptians_, vol. ii. p. 358.

[133] Ammianus Marcellinus, i. 16, says, for a doctor to recommend his
skill, it was sufficient to say that he had studied at Alexandria.

[134] Clem. Alex., _Strom._

[135] _Hist. Med. Education_, p. 24.

[136] Book ii. 84.

[137] _Ancient Egyptians_, vol. iii. p. 477.

[138] Plin. xix. 5.

[139] _Official Guide_, p. 111.

[140] Chabas, _Mélanges Égyptologiques_, p. 64.

[141] Ebers, _Egypt_, vol. ii. p. 62.

[142] _Contra Celsum_, lib. 8.

[143] _Chaldæan Magic_, p. 96.

[144] _Ibid._, pp. 96, 97.

[145] Brugsch, _Egypt under the Pharaohs_, vol. ii. p. 184.

[146] _Hist. Egypt_, by Brugsch-Bey, vol. ii. p. 163-4.

[147] _Odyssey_, iv. 229-232.

[148] Chap. xlvi., v. 11.

[149] Pliny, _Nat. Hist._, viii. 27.

[150] Chabas, _loc. cit._, p. 66.

[151] _Pharaohs and Fellahs_, Amelia B. Edwards, p. 219.

[152] _Uarda_, vol. i. p. 32.

[153] _Ibid._

[154] Baas’ _Hist. Med._ (Eng. Trans.), p. 19.

[155] _History of Egypt_, vol. i. p. 58.

[156] _Mélanges Égyptologiques_, Paris, 1862, p. 117.

[157] Priests and physicians were educated in high schools, the highest
degree in which was that of the “scribes,” who were maintained at the
cost of the king. Ebers, _Uarda_, vol. i. p. 20.

[158] Lefébure has treated the subject in _Le Mythe Osirien_.

[159] See Cooper’s _Surgical Dict._, art. “Surgery.”

[160] _Ten Years’ Digging in Egypt_, p. 146.

[161] _Pharaohs and Fellahs_, Amelia B. Edwards, p. 254.

[162] _Superstitions of Medicine_, etc., p. 7.

[163] _Uarda_, Ebers.

[164] Brugsch, _Hist. Egypt_, vol. ii. p. 296.

[165] _Ten Years’ Digging in Egypt_, p. 153.

[166] _Ibid._, p. 172.

[167] Ebers, _Egypt_, vol. ii. p. 61.

[168] Gen. xxxi. 19, 30.

[169] Chap. iii. 4.

[170] _Isis Unveiled_, vol. i. p. 570.

[171] Judges xvii.-xviii.

[172] Ezekiel xxi. 19-22.

[173] _Primitive Culture_, vol. i. p. 267. 2 Samuel xxiv. 16; 2 Kings
xix. 35.

[174] 3tes Heft, p. 25.

[175] _Ibid._, p. 27.

[176] _Races of Man_, p. 153.

[177] _Ibid._, p. 293.

[178] _Antiquities of Israel_, p. 90.

[179] “Finditur usque ad urethram à parte inferâ penis.”—Eyre, vol. ii.
p. 332.

[180] _Arabian Nights_, vol. ii. p. 160, note 3.

[181] _Antiquities of Israel_, p. 156.

[182] _Wars_, vii. 6, 3.

[183] Book VIII. chap. iii. 5.

[184] _Antiq._, Book VI. chap. viii. 2.

[185] Note to Whiston’s Josephus, _loc. cit._

[186] 1 Sam. xvi. 15.

[187] _Religious Encyclopædia_, vol. ii. p. 1454.

[188] _Medica Sacra_, p. 40 _et seq._

[189] _Arabian Nights_, vol. ii. p. 4.

[190] _Ecclesiasticus_ xxxviii. 1, 3, 4, 12. From the many references
to disease in this book, it has been supposed by some commentators that
the author was a physician. The writer of the article on “Medicine,”
in _Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible_, remarks that “if he was so, the
power of mind and wide range of observation shown in this work, would
give a favourable impression of the standard of practitioners; if he
was not, the great general popularity of the study and practice may
be inferred from its thus becoming a common topic of general advice
offered by a non-professional writer.”

[191] _Wars of the Jews_, Book II. chap, viii; _Antiq._, xviii. 1, 5.

[192] See Lightfoot on the _Colossians_.

[193] _Works_, vol. i. p. 10.

[194] _Ibid._, vol. vii. p. 7.

[195] _History of Medicine_, p. 36.

[196] “‘How doth a man revive again in the world to come?’ asked
Hadrian; and Joshua Ben Hananiah made answer, ‘From luz in the
backbone.’ He then went on to demonstrate this to him. He took the bone
luz, and put it into water, but the water had no action on it; he put
it in the fire, but the fire consumed it not; he placed it in a mill,
but could not grind it; and laid it on an anvil, but the hammer crushed
it not.”—_Lightfoot._

[197] _Alexandria and her Schools_, p. 74.

[198] Le Clerc, _Hist. de la Méd._, Pt. I. 2, 4.

[199] _A History of the Jews_, Book xxiii.

[200] _Ibid._

[201] G. S. Faber, _The Cabiri_, vol. i.

[202] Art. on “Babylon,” by Rev. A. H. Sayce, in _Ency. Brit._

[203] _Hist. Babylonia_, Geo. Smith, pp. 21, 22.

[204] Lenormant, _Chaldæan Magic_, pp. 139, 140.

[205] See on this the chapter on “The Religious Systems of the Accadian
Magic Books,” Lenormant, _Chaldæan Magic_, chap. xi.

[206] Lenormant, _Chaldæan Magic_, p. 42.

[207] _Ibid._, p. 179.

[208] Lenormant, _Chaldæan Magic_, p. 181.

[209] _Ibid._, pp. 204-209.

[210] _Ibid._, p. 35.

[211] _Ibid._, p. 36.

[212] _Ibid._, p. 36.

[213] _Ibid._, p. 41.

[214] See E. B. Tylor, art. “Demonology,” _Ency. Brit._; _Records
of the Past_, vols. i., iii.; Birch’s trans. _Book of the Dead_;
Lenormant, Maspero, and others.

[215] _Herodotus_, Book I. 197, tr. Rawlinson.

[216] _Records of the Past_, vol. i. p. 135.

[217] _Hist. Babylon_, p. 22.

[218] Lenormant, _Chaldæan Magic_, p. 6.

[219] _Nineveh and its Palaces_, Joseph Bonomi, p. 164.

[220] _Records of the Past_, vol. iii. p. 140.

[221] _Assyrian Talismans and Exorcisms_, trans. by H. F. Talbot.
_Records of the Past_, vol. iii. p. 143.

[222] _Folk Medicine_, p. 165.

[223] From Baas’ _Hist. Med._, p. 28.

[224] See Taylor, _Origin of the Aryans_, chap. i.

[225] _Indian Wisdom_, p. xxvi.

[226] _Indian Wisdom_, p. 84.

[227] _Ibid._, p. 89.

[228] _Asiatic Quarterly Review_, Oct., 1892, p. 287.

[229] _Hist. India_, 4th ed., p. 48.

[230] _Hist. India_, 4th ed., p. 123.

[231] _Hist. Philos._, vol. i. p. 394.

[232] _School of Philos._, p. 547.

[233] Max Müller: _Zend-Avesta_, 83.

[234] _Ordinances of Menu_, Trübner’s Oriental Series. Lect. xi. 48-54.

[235] The first fine is the lowest, _i.e._ two hundred and fifty
_panas_. In the Atharvaveda also physicians are spoken of in
disrespectful terms. “Various are the desires of men; the wagoner
longs for wood, the doctor for diseases.” A Brahman by the code of
Menu was forbidden to follow the profession of a physician, as it
was classed amongst those which were most impure.[236] At certain
funeral ceremonies the same Code excluded such persons as “physicians,
atheists, thieves, spirit drinkers, men with diseased nails or teeth,
dancers, etc.”[237]

[236] Elphinstone, _Hist. of India_, 4th edition, p. 41.

[237] _Ordinances of Menu_, iii. 150-168.

[238] Baas, _Hist. Med._, p. 41.

[239] Hunter’s _Indian Empire_, p. 109.

[240] _Asiatic Quarterly Rev._, Oct. 1892, p. 290.

[241] _Ibid._

[242] Tract vi. p. 125.

[243] Weber, _Hist. Ind. Lit._, p. 270.

[244] _Ibid._

[245] Wise’s _Hindu Medicine_, p. 184.

[246] _Hindu Medicine_, p. 8.

[247] _Hist. Ind. Lit._, p. 268.

[248] Wise’s _Hindu Medicine_, p. 213.

[249] There would seem to be an artful idea under these signs. Most
of them have no relation whatever to the patient’s condition, but are
of great importance to the doctor’s convenience, and are evidently
arranged to suit his own purposes.

[250] Ainslie’s _Materia Indica_, vol. ii. p. 525.

[251] Arrian’s _Indian History_, vol. ii. p. 232 (ed. 1729).

[252] Strabo, _Geography_, Book xv. c. 1.

[253] _Indian History_, vol. ii. p. 219.

[254] _Hibbert Lectures_, 1878, p. 150.

[255] Weber, _Sanskrit Literature_, p. 265.

[256] _Tracts on India_, p. 139.

[257] _Hibbert Lectures_, 1878, p. 134.

[258] Monier Williams, _Indian Wisdom_, p. 56.

[259] _Ibid._, p. 57.

[260] _Indian Wisdom_, p. 66.

[261] John ix. 2.

[262] _Asiatic Quarterly Review_, Oct. 1892, p. 288.

[263] _Asiatic Quarterly Review_, Oct. 1892, p. 288.

[264] _A Manual of Budhism_, pp. 238.

[265] Probably the Taxila of the Greeks. See Strabo, Book xv. c. 1, §
61.

[266] A doctrine re-discovered by our bacteriologists.

[267] Haeser.

[268] _Materia Indica_, vol. ii. p. vii.

[269] _Ibid._

[270] _Ibid._, p. viii.

[271] _Oriental Magazine_, March, 1823.

[272] Wise, _Hist. Hind. Med._, vol. i. pp. 131, 132.

[273] _Indian Empire_, p. 106.

[274] _Oriental Magazine_, vol. i. (1823), pp. 349-356.

[275] _Indian Empire_, p. 108.

[276] _Ibid._

[277] _Ibid._, p. 146.

[278] _Medical and Surgical Sciences of the Hindus._

[279] _Hibbert Lectures_, 1878, p. 153.

[280] Prof. H. H. Wilson’s _Medical and Surgical Sciences of the
Hindus_.

[281] _Brit. Med. Journ._, June 25, 1892, p. 1382.

[282] Mocre, _History of the Small-pox_, p. 33, quoted in Pettigrew’s
_Medical Superstitions_, p. 81.

[283] Paris’s _Pharmacologia_, p. 26.

[284] Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, vol. ii. p. 150.

[285] _Asiatic Quarterly Rev._, Oct. 1892, p. 291.

[286] Selections from the Records of the Government of India. Foreign
Department. No. CVIII. Rajputana Dispensary, Vaccination, Jail, and
Sanitary Report for 1872-73. By Surgeon-Major (now Surgeon-General Sir
W.) Moore, C.I.E., Honorary Surgeon to the Viceroy of India.

[287] See an article entitled “A New Light on the Chinese,” in
_Harper’s Magazine_, December, 1892.

[288] Prof. Teile, in art. “Religions,” _Ency. Brit._

[289] Cummings, _Wanderings in China_, vol. i. p. 188.

[290] Baas, _Hist. Med._

[291] “Doctoring in China,” _National Review_, May, 1889.

[292] Doolittle’s _Social Life of the Chinese_, vol. i. p. 145.

[293] _Folk Medicine_, p. 4; Dennys, _Folklore of China_, p. 96.

[294] Doolittle’s _Social Life of the Chinese_, vol. i. p. 153.

[295] _Ibid._, vol. i. p. 275.

[296] Doolittle’s _Social Life of the Chinese_, vol. i. p. 265.

[297] _Ibid._, vol. i. p. 275.

[298] _Ibid._, vol. i. p. 154.

[299] _Ibid._, vol. ii. p. 116.

[300] _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xi. p. 272.

[301] _Travels in Tartary_, vol. i. chap. vii.

[302] _National Dispensatory_, p. 754.

[303] Gordon Cumming’s _Wanderings in China_, vol. i. p. 174.

[304] “Doctoring in China,” _National Review_, May, 1889.

[305] Doolittle’s _Social Life of the Chinese_, vol. ii. p. 321.

[306] Southey, _Common Place Book_, ser. iv. p. 547.

[307] _Ency. Brit._, art. “Surgery.”

[308] _Chambers’ Journal_, Dec. 29, 1888, p. 831.

[309] _Wanderings in China_, vol. i. p. 173.

[310] _Ibid._, vol. i. p. 173.

[311] _Folk Lore of China_, p. 49.

[312] _Ibid._

[313] _Travels in Tartary._

[314] _Travels in Tartary._

[315] _Travels in Tartary_, vol. i. chap. ix.

[316] _La Magie et l’Astrologie_, p. 13.

[317] _Vorlesungen über die Finnische Mythologie_, p. 173.

[318] _La Magie et l’Astrologie_, p. 283, and foll.; also Lenormant,
_Chaldæan Magic_, p. 212.

[319] _National Druggist._

[320] Darmesteter, _Zend-Avesta_.

[321] _Zend-Avesta_; _Vendîdâd._ _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. iv.
p. 219.

[322] _Ibid._

[323] _Rig-Veda_, x. 97, 17.

[324] _Vendîdâd_, Fargard xx. 7.

[325] _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. iv. p. 83.

[326] _Herod._, i. 138.

[327] _Zend-Avesta._ Translated by J. Darmesteter in _Sacred Books of
the East_, vol. iv. p. 187. This throws a curious light on a custom
which has been observed in operation all over the world, of taking care
not to throw about hair or nail-cuttings, lest the devil should get
hold of them.

[328] _Zend-Avesta_, Introduction, v. xciii. § 13.

[329] Our word Peony derives its Latin name (Pæonia) from the name of
Apollo the Healer. He cured the gods of their diseases, and healed
their wounds by means of this root.

[330] vii. 23.

[331] Wheelwright’s translation of _Pindar_. _Third Pythian Ode_, 80-95.

[332] _Sacred Books of the East_, vol. iv. p. 219 note.

[333] _Il._, V. 447.

[334] Sophoc., _Ajax_.

[335] Cicero, _De Nat. Deor._, iii. 22.

[336] _Prometheus._ Plays of Æschylus, Morley’s Ed.

[337] Book XIX.

[338] _Hist. de la Médicine_, Pt. I., liv. i., ch. xiv.

[339] _Ibid._

[340] I am indebted to an article on “The Medicine of Homer” in _The
British Medical Journal_ for much of the information in this section.

[341] Le Clerc, _Hist. de la Méd._, Pt. I., liv. ii., ch. ix.

[342] Arctinus, _Ethiopis_. Translated in Puschmann’s _Hist. Med.
Education_, p. 35.

[343] Le Clerc, _Hist. de la Méd._, Pt. I., bk. i., ch. xviii.

[344] Lib. VIII., cap. 26.

[345] Cic., _Tusc. Dis._, III. 1.

[346] Hippocr., _De Prisca Medic._

[347] Le Clerc, _Hist. de la Méd._, Pt. I., liv. ii., c. iv.

[348] Laertius, Lib. I., c. 113.

[349] _Hist. Med._, p. 88.

[350] Puschmann, _Hist. Med. Education_, p. 46.

[351] See on this Dr. Greenhill’s remarks in _Smith’s Dict. Greek and
Roman Biography_, loc. cit.

[352] Aristotle, _Hist. Animal._, iii. 2.

[353] _Ency. Brit._, Ninth Ed., vol. iii. p. 178.

[354] Baas, _Hist. Med._, p. 88.

[355] _Ibid._, p. 89.

[356] _Laertius_, c. 77, c. 59.

[357] _Ibid._, c. 62.

[358] Diodor., i. 69, 98.

[359] Grote, vol. iv. p. 529.

[360] Book xx. 73.

[361] See “Pythagorean Philosophy,” _Ency. Brit._

[362] Baas, _Hist. Med._, p. 89. Meryon, _Hist. Med._, p. 14. Dr.
Adams, _Introd. Hippoc._, vol. i. p. 134.

[363] _Histoire de la Médicine_, Pt. I., liv. i., c. iv.

[364] Lib. 3, cap. 4.

[365] Sprengel, _Hist. Méd._, p. 36.

[366] Pratt, _Flowering Plants_, vol. i. p. 57.

[367] _Herod._, iii. 137.

[368] _Hist. Nat._, xxviii. c. 29.

[369] _De Carnibus._

[370] Vol. i. p. 151.

[371] Ovid’s _Metamorph._, Dryden’s translation, Book XV.

[372] The following are translations of some of the tablets suspended
in the temples, as given in Hieron Mercurialis (_De Art. Gymnast._,
Amstel., 4to, 1672, pp. 2, 3):—

“Some days back a certain Caius, who was blind, learned from an oracle
that he should repair to the temple, put up his fervent prayers, cross
the sanctuary from right to left, place his five fingers on the altar,
then raise his hand and cover his eyes. He obeyed, and instantly his
sight was restored, amidst the loud acclamations of the multitude.
These signs of the omnipotence of the gods were shown in the reign of
Antoninus.”

“A blind soldier, named Valerius Apes, having consulted the oracle,
was informed that he should mix the blood of a white cock with honey,
to make up an ointment to be applied to his eyes for three consecutive
days. He received his sight, and returned public thanks to the gods.”

“Julian appeared lost beyond all hope from a spitting of blood. The
gods ordered him to take from the altar some seeds of the pine, and
to mix them with honey, of which mixture he was to eat for three
days. He was saved, and came to thank the gods in presence of the
people.”—(Smith’s _Dict. Greek and Roman Ant._, art. “Medicina.”)

[373] The multitude of “Eau de Cologne” makers calling themselves
“Farina” is a case in point.

[374] Adams, _Hippocrates_, vol. i. p. 7.

[375] Galen, _De Sanitate tuenda_.

[376] Meryon, _Hist. Med._, p. 11.

[377] Baas, _Hist. Med._, p. 91.

[378] All-heal.

[379] Dr. Puschmann, in his _History of Medical Education_, p. 42,
translates this passage: “Castration will I not carry out even on
those who suffer from stone, but leave this to those people who
make a business of it.” The words in the Greek are οὐ τεμέω δὲ οὐδὲ
μὴν λιθιῶντας, and much controversy has been excited by them. Some
commentators of great authority think the passage forbids castration,
as disgraceful things are being spoken of, such as giving poisons and
procuring abortion. Certainly there is no reason for supposing that
the doctors of the period would object to perform lithotomy though it
is the fact that there was a class of operators who were a sort of
unscientific specialists in the practice.

[380] Baas, _Hist. Med._, p. 93.

[381] Plut., _Symp._, viii. 4, § 4.

[382] Plato, _De Leg._, xi.

[383] _Ibid._, iv.

[384] Cos gave birth to Ptolemy Philadelphus, the second of the Greek
kings of Egypt, to Ariston the philosopher, and to Apelles the painter.

[385] Vol. ii. p. 569.

[386] Vol. vi. p. 1152.

[387] _Works of Hippocrates_, Syd. Soc., vol. ii. p. 565.

[388] _Œuvres Complètes d’Hippocrate_, Tom. I., Introd., ch. i. p. 3.

[389] Adams, _Hippocrates_, vol. i. p. 18.

[390] _Epidem._, vi.

[391] _Ibid._, i.

[392] Derivation is the drawing of humours from one part of the body to
another, as from the eye by a blister on the neck; revulsion differs
from this only by the force of the medicine and the distance of the
disorder from the part to which it is applied. He treated fevers by
preparations which increase the amount of fluid in the blood, as by
water, buttermilk, whey, etc. This was called the diluent system. At
the same time he used mild aperients and sometimes venesection.

[393] Νοὐσων φύσιες ἰητροἰ. _Epid._, vi. 5, l.t. iii. p. 606.

[394] See for all this surgical information Ashurst’s _International
Encyclopædia of Surgery_, vol. vi.

[395] _Genuine Works of Hippocrates_, vol. i. pp. 20, 21.

[396] Adams, _Genuine Works of Hippocrates_, vol. i. pp. 129, 130.

[397] Probably masks or inanimate figures (Adams).

[398] Baas, _Hist. Med._, Eng. Trans., pp. 111, 112.

[399] Le Clerc, _Hist. de la Méd._, Pt. I., bk. iv.

[400] Celsus, _De Medic._, Prælat, in lib. i.

[401] _Hist. Nat._, xxvi. 6.

[402] On the question of the authenticity of this epistle see Dr.
Adams’ commentary in his _Paulus Ægineta_, vol. i. p. 186.

[403] _Hist. de la Méd._, vol. i. pp. 422-3.

[404] _Œuvres d’Hippocr._, vol. i. p. 202, etc.

[405] Cæl. Aurel., _De Morb. Acut._, iii. 17.

[406] Le Clerc, _Hist. de la Méd._ Meryon, _Hist. Med._, p. 35.

[407] _Études Biographiques_ par Paul-Antoine, Cap. p. 26. The
_Treatise on Stones_ by Theophrastus is one of the first works we
possess on the study of minerals.

[408] _Alexandria and her Schools_, p. 6.

[409] Galen, _De Uteri Dissect._, c. 5, vol. ii. p. 895.

[410] _De Anima_, c. 10, p. 757.

[411] _De Medic._, i. Præf., p. 6.

[412] Baas, _Hist. of Med._, pp. 121-123.

[413] Puschmann, _Hist. Med. Educ._, p. 76.

[414] Plutarch’s _Life of Demetrius_.

[415] He modified his opinions on the nerves by careful dissections,
and greatly improved his physiology.

[416] Baas, _Hist. of Med._, pp. 121-123.

[417] Le Clerc, _Hist. de la Méd._, Pt. II. c. iii.

[418] Dr. W. A. Greenhill, art. “Dogmatici,” Smith’s _Dict. Class.
Ant._ Briefly, this was as much as to say that a man could not be
an educated doctor who had not practised, or at least seen, human
vivisection. As these have not been performed since the fifteenth
century, when, as we shall learn, they were practised by Italian
anatomists, it follows, according to the argument, that the Alexandrian
physicians were better educated than our own!

[419] _De Med._, vii. 26. See also Smith’s _Dict. Ant._, p. 220.

[420] Plin., _Hist. Nat._, xxvi. 6.

[421] _De Med._, Præfat.

[422] Celsus, _Of Medicine_.

[423] _Life of Demetrius._

[424] _Hist. Med._, p. 129.

[425] _Hist. de la Méd._; Pt. II., bk. iii., ch. xiii.

[426] Celsus, _Of Medicine_, chap. iv. Futvoye’s Trans.

[427] Dr. Francis Adams. Preface to Works of _Paulus Ægineta_, p. xii.

[428] iii. 131.

[429] Smith’s _Dict. Ant._, p. 611.

[430] _Herodotus_, iv. 68.

[431] _Hist. de la Méd._, vol. vi. p. 28.

[432] Smith’s _Dict. Ant._, art. “Therapeutica.”

[433] _Titus Livius_, lib. i., cap. xxxi. Pliny, _Hist. Nat._, lib.
xxviii., c. ii.

[434] _De Civ. Dei._, lib. iv. cap. xxi.

[435] _Ibid._, cap. xxiii.

[436] Baas, _Hist. Med._, p. 131.

[437] Puschmann, _Hist. of Med. Educ._, p. 86.

[438] _Ibid._, p. 97. Baas, _Hist. Med._, p. 152.

[439] _Hist. Nat._, xxix. 8.

[440] _Life of Cato the Censor._

[441] _Hist. Nat._, xxix. cap. 8.

[442] _Epist._ 93.

[443] See Baas, _Hist. of Med._, and Dr. Habershon’s note on this
subject, p. 133.

[444] Bostock, _Hist. of Med._

[445] Puschmann, _Hist. Med. Educ._, p. 98.

[446] _Epigrams_, x. 56.

[447] _Hist. Med. Educ._, p. 131.

[448] Cels., lib. vii. p. 337, ed. Targ. Sprengel, _Hist. de la Méd._,
tom. vii. p. 38.

[449] _Hist. of Med. Educ._, p. 117.

[450] Galen, x. 987. Plin., _Nat. Hist._, xxix. 8.

[451] _Nat. Hist._, xxix. 5.

[452] Smith’s _Dict. Ant._, p. 611.

[453] Puschmann’s _Med. Educ._, 126.

[454] Cæl. Aurel., _De Morb. Chron._, iii. 8.

[455] Sprengel, _Hist. de la Méd._, vol. vi. p. 138.

[456] Baas, _Hist. of Med._, p. 137.

[457] Sprengel, _Hist. de la Méd._, vol. ii. p. 24.

[458] Baas, _Hist. of Med._, p. 140.

[459] Cæl. Aurel., _De Morb. Chron._, i. l. p. 286.

[460] _Sat._, x. 221.

[461] Galen, _Introd._, c. l., tom. xiv., pp. 663, 684. Ed. Kühn.

[462] _De Medic._, lib. i., Præf.

[463] Le Clerc, _Hist. Méd._, Part II., liv. iv., sec. i., ch. 1.

[464] Baas, _Hist. of Med._, p. 143.

[465] Prof. W. Turner, art. “Anatomy,” _Ency. Brit._

[466] Dr. Ch. Creighton, art. “Surgery,” _Ency. Brit._

[467] _Grundriss der Geschichte der Medicin._

[468] _A. C. Celsi Med. Præf._, ad lib. 7.

[469] _De re Med._, lib. 1.

[470] _Hist. de la Méd._, vol. ii. p. 50.

[471] Sprengel, _Hist. Méd._, vol. ii. p. 37.

[472] Baas, _Grund. der Ges. der Med._, p. 144.

[473] _Mechanical Account of Poisons._

[474] Theophrastus, _Hist. Plant._, ix. 17.

[475] _National Dispensatory_, p. 1515.

[476] Conf. Gal. Comment. in _Hippocr._, lib. vi.; _De Morb. Vulgar._,
vi., § 5, tom. xvii. p. ii. p. 337.

[477] _History of Inventions_, art. “Apothecaries.”

[478] _Plin._, lib. xxxiv. cap. 11.

[479] _C. Steph._, 1133.

[480] _Peloponnesian War_, ii. 48.

[481] _Annal._, xiii. c. 15, 16.

[482] _Nero_, 33.

[483] _The Instructor_, Book II.

[484] Seneca, _De Benefic._, vi. 15, 16, 17.

[485] John Henry Newman’s _Life of Apollonius Tyanæus_.

[486] By Lord Herbert and Mr. Blount.

[487] Newman’s _Life of Apollonius_.

[488] Galen, _De Temperamentis_.

[489] Smith’s _Dict. Greek and Roman Ant._, art. “Pneumatici.” See also
Sprengel and Le Clerc.

[490] Smith’s _Dict. Ant._, art. “Eclectici.”

[491] _Nat. Hist._, xx. 40; xxiv. 120.

[492] vi. 236; xiii. 98; xiv. 252.

[493] See Baas, _Hist. Med._, p. 167.

[494] _De Causis Diuturnorum Morborum_, etc., lib. ii. cap. xiii.

[495] Baas, _Hist. Med._, p. 167.

[496] Sprengel, _Hist. de la Méd._, Introd. vol. i. p. 15.

[497] Bostock, _Hist. of Med._

[498] _Hist. Induct. Sciences_, vol. iii. p. 389.

[499] _De Usu_, Part iii. 10.

[500] Whewell, _Hist. Induct. Sciences_, vol. iii. p. 386. Sprengel,
ii. p. 150.

[501] _De Motu Musc._

[502] Whewell, _Hist. Induct. Sciences_, vol. iii. p. 388.

[503] See for a full account of Galen’s doctrine of the pulse, Dr.
Adams’ _Commentary on Paulus Ægineta_, vol. ii. p. 12.

[504] _De Dignosc. Puls._, iii. 3, vol. viii. p. 902.

[505] Dr. Greenhill in Smith’s _Dict. Greek and Roman Biog._

[506] Galen’s _Art of Physic_.

[507] _Ency. Brit._, art. “Surgery.”

[508] Smith’s _Dict. Greek and Roman Biog._, art. “Galen.”

[509] Cardan, _De Subtil._

[510] _Hist. of Med._, vol. i. p. 115.

[511] Smith’s _Dict. Greek and Roman Biog._, vol. i. p. 126.

[512] _Alexandria and her Schools_, p. 113.

[513] Freind, _Historia Medicinæ_, p. 383.

[514] _Ibid._, p. 380.

[515] Smith’s _Dict. Ant._

[516] _Hist. Med._

[517] Freind, _Hist. Med._

[518] _Ibid._

[519] Baas, _Hist. Med._, p. 201.

[520] _Ibid._

[521] _North Brit. Rev._, vol. 47.

[522] Browning’s _Parleyings_, p. 44.

[523] Cato, _De re Rustica_, c. 2.

[524] Sat. vi.

[525] Prescott says, _Conquest of Mexico_, chap, ii., that among the
Aztecs, “Hospitals were established in the principal cities for the
cure of the sick, and the permanent refuge of the disabled soldier; and
the surgeons were placed over them, ‘who were so far better than those
in Europe,’ says an old chronicler, ‘that they did not protract the
cure, in order to increase the pay.’”

[526] _Ecclesiastical History_, lib. vi. ch. xlii.

[527] Butler’s _Lives of the Saints_. St. Basil the Great.

[528] _Ibid._, loc. cit.

[529] p. 153.

[530] _Eccl. Hist._, lib. vii. c. xxi.

[531] See Balmez, _European Civilization_, p. 436.

[532] Can. 10. Concil. iv. (Mans. vii.).

[533] Fleury’s _Eccl. Hist._, Book xxi. 3, note _e_.

[534] _Ibid._, xxiii. 24.

[535] Sprengel, _Hist. de la Méd._, p. 56.

[536] _Ency. Brit._, vol. i. p. 181.

[537] Puschmann’s _Hist. Med. Educ._, p. 189.

[538] _Pharaohs_, _Fellahs_, etc., Amelia B. Edwards, p. 243.

[539] Preface to _Saxon Leechdoms_, vol. i. p. xxi.

[540] _Ibid._, vol. i. p. xxiii.

[541] Vulpes, _Illustrazione di tutti gli Strumenti chirurgici scavati
in Ercolano e in Pompei_, Napoli, 1847.

[542] _Ibid._

[543] Vulpes, _ut supra_.

[544] _Medical Superstitions_, p. 56

[545] Marsden, _Hist. Sumatra_, p. 189.

[546] Pettigrew, _Medical Superstitions_, p. 61.

[547] _Custom and Myth_, p. 148.

[548] _Custom and Myth._, p. 150.

[549] _Rivers of Life_, J. G. R. Forlong.

[550] _Anthropological Journal_, vol. xii. p. 572.

[551] Baas, _Hist. Med._, p. 68.

[552] Hooker, _Himalayan Journ._, Ed. 1891, p. 141.

[553] _Travels in Africa_, Ed. 1890, p. 488.

[554] Plin., xxi. 104.

[555] Plin., xxii. 24.

[556] Plin., xxx. 30.

[557] _Official Guide, Brit. Museum Galleries_, 1892, pp. 122-3.

[558] From _Ritual of the Dead_. Lenormant, _Chaldæan Magic_, p. 90.

[559] _Ten Years’ Digging in Egypt_, p. 94.

[560] Pratt’s _Flowering Plants_, vol. i. p. 50.

[561] _Nat. Hist._, Book xxx. chap. 20.

[562] _Ibid_., Book. xxx. chap. 24.

[563] _Dict. Greek and Roman Ant._, Smith’s art. “Amulets.”

[564] H. N. xxv. 9.

[565] Smith’s _Dict. Greek and Roman Ant._, art. “Therapeutica.” See
also “Amulets,” p. 45.

[566] _Hist. Med._, p. 772.

[567] Vol. ii. p. 139.

[568] Heathen charm.

[569] A blackberry.

[570] Nightmare was considered to be the work of an evil spirit.

[571] Plin., xxx. 30.

[572] See the twenty-second and twenty-fourth books of _Pliny’s Natural
History_.

[573] Lib. ix. cap. 4, p. 538, Ed. 1556.

[574] _Galen de Facult. Simpl._, lib. vi. p. 792, Ed. Kühn.

[575] “A Gnostic device. See Montfauçon, plates 159, 161, 163.”

[576] This also is Gnostic.

[577] Mr. Cockayne considers this to be probably Gnostic; some of the
words are pure nonsense.

[578] Quoted by Mr. Cockayne in his _Saxon Leechdoms_, vol. i.,
Preface, pp. xviii., xix., xx.

[579] _Anatomy of Melancholy_, Part 2, sec. 5.

[580] Rev. C. A. John’s _Flowers of the Field_.

[581] Brand’s _Observations_, vol. ii. p. 67.

[582] _Hist. Nat._, xxxvii. 10.

[583] Brand’s _Observations_, etc., vol. ii. p. 63.

[584] Burton’s _Anatomy_, p. 454.

[585] _Saxon Leech Book_, II. ch. lxvi.

[586] See _Curious Myths of Middle Ages_, S. B. Gould, Appendix C, p.
273.

[587] Morley’s _Life of Corn. Agrippa_, vol. i. p. 165.

[588] _History of Medicine_, p. 107.

[589] _Secret Miracles of Nature_, Eng. trans. fol., Lond. 1658, p. 164.

[590] _Vulgar Errors._

[591] _Saxon Leechdoms_, vol. i., Pref., p. xxxii.

[592] Brand’s _Popular Antiquities_, vol. iii. p. 139.

[593] _Encylopædia of Antiquities_, vol. i. p. 336.

[594] _Medical Superstitions_, p. 45.

[595] Lubbock, _Origin of Civilization_, 5th Ed., p. 23.

[596] _Park’s Travels_, vol. i. p. 357.

[597] _Astley’s Voyages_, vol. ii. p. 35.

[598] _Siberia_, p. 310.

[599] Vambery’s _Travels in Central Asia_, p. 50.

[600] Masson’s _Travels in Belochistan_, etc., vol. i. pp. 74, 90, 312,
vol. ii. pp. 127, 302.

[601] _The Thoughts of Blaise Pascal_, Bell’s Ed. 1890, p. 2.

[602] _L’Amulette de Pascal. Médecine et Médecins._ Par E. Littré.
Paris, 1872.

[603] Arnot’s _Hist. Edin._

[604] Vol. i. p. 192.

[605] _Præcepta de Medicina_ of Serenus Samonicus.

[606] Lardner, _Works_, vol. ix. pp. 290-364.

[607] Pettigrew, _Medical Superstitions_, p. 52.

[608] Vol. iii. p. 29.

[609] Morley’s _Life of Cornelius Agrippa_, vol. i. p. 80.

[610] _Ibid._, p. 81.

[611] Henry’s _Hist. of Great Britain_, vol. i. p. 147.

[612] Meryon, _Hist. Med._, pp. 113, 114; Strutt’s _Chronicles of
England_, vol. i. p. 279.

[613] _Chronicles of England_, vol. i. p. 279.

[614] _Ibid._, p. 281.

[615] Plin., _Hist. Nat._, lib. xxx. c. i.

[616] Diod. Sicul., lib. v. cap. 35.

[617] _The Chronicles of England_, vol. i. pp. 278, 279.

[618] _The Chronicles of England_, vol. i. p. 278.

[619] _Nat. Hist._, Book xxx. chap. iv.

[620] See note on Pliny’s passage, “Ut dedisse Persis videri possit,”
in Bohn’s Pliny’s _Nat. Hist._, vol. v. p. 426.

[621] Holinshed, _Chronicles of England_, vol. i. p. 506.

[622] _Hist. Med._, p. 249.

[623] _Hist. Med. Education_, p. 187.

[624] _Ibid._, p. 186.

[625] Grimm’s _Teutonic Mythology_, translated by Stallybrass, vol. i.
p. 133.

[626] _Ibid._, vol. i. p. 42.

[627] See Tennyson’s poem, _The Victim_.

[628] Grimm.

[629] _Ibid._

[630] Grimm, _Teutonic Mythology_, vol. ii. p. 586.

[631] Grimm’s _Teutonic Mythology_, p. 588.

[632] _Ibid._, p. 602.

[633] _Ibid._, p. 604.

[634] _Ibid._, vol. ii. p. 874.

[635] _Eccl. Hist._, lib. iii. cap. 18.

[636] Strutt’s _Chronicles of England_, vol. i. p. 345.

[637] _Chronicles of England_, vol. ii. p. 248.

[638] Bede, _Eccles. Hist._, lib. v. cap. 3.

[639] _Chronicles of England_, vol. ii. p. 248.

[640] Strutt’s _Horda Angel Cynnan_, vol. i. p. 70.

[641] Strutt, _The Chronicles of England_, vol. i. p. 344. Bede, _Eccl.
Hist._, iii. 18.

[642] _Leech Book_, ii. p. 289.

[643] _Ibid._, p. xxv.

[644] A valuable expectorant which is largely used at the present time.

[645] Recherches critiques sur l’âge et origine des traductions Latines
d’Aristote. Paris, 1819.

[646] _Saxon Leechdoms_, vol. ii., Preface, p. xxix.

[647] _Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England_, vol.
ii. Edited by Rev. O. Cockayne. (Rolls Series.)

[648] _MS. Reg._, 12. D. xvii.

[649] _Leech Book_, I. xiii. p. 57.

[650] _Saxon Leechdoms_, vol. ii. p. 117.

[651] The doctor and the patient.

[652] _Saxon Leechdoms_, vol. ii. p. 137.

[653] _Ibid._, vol. ii. pp. 137-8.

[654] Church bells were anciently used more to frighten the fiends away
than for calling together the worshippers.

[655] Psalms cxix., lxviii., and lxix.

[656] A formula of Benediction.

[657] _Polypodium vulgare._

[658] _Saxon Leechdoms_, vol. ii. pp. 138-9.

[659] _Leech Book_, III. vol. ii. p. 343.

[660] _Saxon Leechdoms_, vol. ii. p. 335.

[661] _Ibid._, p. 335.

[662] _Saxon Leechdoms_, vol. ii. p. 307.

[663] _Ibid._, vol. i. Preface, p. xxvii.

[664] _Saxon Leechdoms_, vol. i. Preface, pp. xxvi., xxvii.

[665] _Leech Book_, iii. p. 307.

[666] _Myv. Arch._, iii. p. 129.

[667] _Meddygon Myddfai_, Preface, p. ix.

[668] Llanover MS.

[669] _Ancient Laws and Institutions of Wales_, vol. ii. p. 515.

[670] _Meddygon Myddfai_, p. xi.

[671] _Ibid._, p. xiii.

[672] _Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales_, vol. i. p. 41 etc.

[673] _Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales_, vol. i. p. 315.

[674] _Ibid._, p. 507.

[675] _The Physicians of Myddvai_, Llandovery, 1861.

[676] Leges Wallica, l. 4. Henry’s _Hist. of Eng._, vol. i. p. 320.

[677] _Ancient Laws, etc., of Wales_, v. i. p. 313.

[678] See on this Balmez, _European Civilization_, p. 214.

[679] Pococke, _Hist. Dynast._, p. 128; Freind, _Hist. Med._, Lat. Ed.,
p. 472.

[680] Puschmann, _Hist. of Med. Educ._, p. 156.

[681] L. Leclerc, _Hist. de la Méd. Arabe_, i. p. 38.

[682] Freind, _Hist. Med._, p. 473, Ed. 1733.

[683] _Decline and Fall_, etc., ch. lii.

[684] Weber, _Hist. Ind. Lit._, p. 266.

[685] Royle, _Antiquity of Hindu Medicine_.

[686] Weber, p. 266.

[687] Puschmann, p. 160.

[688] Leo Afric., _De viris Illust. ap. Arab. Bib._

[689] _The Saracens_, p. 191.

[690] _Ibid._

[691] _Ibid._, pp. 191, 192.

[692] _Decline and Fall_, etc., ch. lii.

[693] Puschmann, _Hist. Med. Educ._, p. 158.

[694] Freeman’s _Saracens_, p. 54.

[695] Kingsley’s _Alexandria_, p. 148.

[696] Sismondi, _Literature of Europe_, vol. i. p. 51.

[697] _Hist. Med._, p. 123.

[698] See Thompson’s _Hist. Chem._, vol. i. p. 112.

[699] Berington’s _Lit. Hist. Middle Ages_, p. 415.

[700] Gibbon, _Decline and Fall_, etc., ch. lii.

[701] _Imp. Dict. Biog._, art. “Averrhoès.”

[702] Puschmann, p. 162.

[703] Baas, _Hist. Med._, p. 220.

[704] _Literature of Europe_, vol. i. p. 66.

[705] _Ibid._

[706] _Decline and Fall_, etc., chap. lii.

[707] _Dictionary of Islam_, art. “Da’wah.”

[708] Baas, _History of Medicine_, p. 224.

[709] Sismondi, _Literature of Europe_, vol. i. p. 68.

[710] _Ibid._

[711] Dr. W. A. Greenhill, in Smith’s _Dict. Classical Biog._

[712] _Ibid._, in life of Rhazes, in _Imp. Dict. Biog._

[713] Baas, _Hist. Med._, p. 231.

[714] Berington, _Lit. Hist. Middle Ages_, p. 428.

[715] _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, vol. vi. pp. 105-119.

[716] _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, vol. vi. p. 119.

[717] Baas, _Hist. Med._, p. 233.

[718] Arabic writer, quoted by Baas, _Hist. Med._, p. 221.

[719] Freeman’s _Saracens_, p. 4.

[720] _Ibid._, p. 6.

[721] _Philosophy of History_, p. 342.

[722] Chateaubriand, _Analyse de l’Histoire de France, Seconde Race_.

[723] Goodwin, _Lives of the Necromancers_, pp. 29, 30.

[724] Cap, _Études Biographiques_, Ser. ii. p. 326.

[725] See Whewell’s _Hist. Induct. Sciences_, vol. i. p. 305.

[726] _Decline and Fall._

[727] Mullinger’s _University of Cambridge_, p. 334.

[728] As Haydn gives them.

[729] _Ency. Brit._, art. “Anatomy.”

[730] _Rise and Constitution of Universities_, p. 157.

[731] Puschmann’s _Hist. Med. Educ._, p. 214.

[732] Puschmann’s _Hist. Med. Educ._, p. 216.

[733] _Ibid._, p. 217.

[734] _Ibid._ See also Dubouchet, “Documents pour servir à l’histoire
de l’université de médicine de Montpellier,” in the _Gaz. hebd. des
sciences med. de Montpellier_, 1887, No. 4.

[735] _Ibid._, p. 218.

[736] _Surgical Dict._, art. “Surgery.”

[737] Cooper’s _Surgical Dictionary_, art. “Surgery.”

[738] _In vit. Ric. pri._, p. 490.

[739] Strutt’s _Horda Angel-Cynnan_, vol. ii. p. 26.

[740] Wood, _Hist. Univ. of Oxford_, vol. i. p. 62.

[741] Henry, _Hist. Great Britain_, vol. vi. p. 114.

[742] Jessen.

[743] _L’École de Salerne._

[744] Laurie, _Rise, etc., of Universities_, p. 112.

[745] _European Civilization_, p. 216.

[746] _Storia docum. della scuola med. di Salerno_, p. 157, _et seq._

[747] S. de Renzi, _Collectio Salernitana_, iii. 325.

[748] Laurie’s _Rise, etc., of Universities_, p. 112.

[749] See Puschmann’s _Hist. Med._, p. 199.

[750] _Ibid._

[751] _Ibid._, p. 113.

[752] Daremberg, _L’École de Salerne_.

[753] _Hist. Med._, p. 262.

[754] IV. 75.

[755] Laurie, _Rise, etc., of Universities_, p. 113.

[756] Laurie’s _Rise, etc., of the Universities_, pp. 113, 114.

[757] Daremberg, _L’École de Salerne_, p. 146.

[758] _Collect. Salern._, t. ii. pp. 737-768.

[759] _Anomymi Salernitani de adventu medici ad ægrotum._ Ed. A. G. E.
Th. Henschel, Vratisl., 1850. De Renzi, _Collect. Salern._, ii. 74-81,
v. 333-349. Puschmann, _Hist. Med._, p. 203. Daremberg, _L’École de
Salerne_, p. 148.

[760] The whole coast between Salerno and Amalfi and the surrounding
parts are some of the loveliest places in Italy.

[761] Puschmann, _Hist. Med. Education_, p. 201.

[762] Daremberg, _L’École de Salerne_.

[763] See Dr. Haeser’s _Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Medicin_, p. 290.

[764] Puschmann, _Hist. Med. Education_, p. 203.

[765] Meryon, _History of Medicine_, p. 162. See also Beckmann’s _Hist.
of Inventions_, art. “Apothecaries.”

[766] Baas, _Hist. Med._, p. 263.

[767] Note in Baas’ _Hist. Med._, p. 263.

[768] Daremberg, _L’École de Salerne_.

[769] To be precise, “M. Baudry de Balzac computes from 1474 to 1846,
240 editions of _The School of Salerno_. It was translated into French,
German, English, Breton, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Provençal, Bohemian,
Hebrew, and Persian. The number of manuscripts which contain this poem
is more than 150.” (Daremberg, _L’École de Salerne_.)

[770] Iodine was not known at this time; and the virtue of the sponge,
if any, was doubtless due to the iodine it contained.

[771] Baas, _Hist. Med._, p. 299.

[772] Puschmann, _Hist. Med. Educ._, p. 206. De Renzi, _Collect.
Salernit._, ii. 445, 513, 628, 650, etc.

[773] _Hist. diplom. Frid. II. imperat._ Paris, 1854. T. iv., pars. 1,
p. 149, tit. 44, quoted in Puschmann’s _Hist. Med. Education_, p. 207.

[774] _Hist. diplom. Frid. II._, op. cit. p. 235, lib. 3, tit. 46,
etc., quoted in Puschmann’s _Hist. Med. Educ._, p. 208.

[775] A gold tarenus weighed twenty grains.

[776] Puschmann’s _Hist. Med. Educ._, p. 210.

[777] Aubrey, _Hist. England_, vol. i. p. 487.

[778] Art. “Astrology,” _Ency. Brit._, vol. ii. p. 741.

[779] _Médecine et Médecins_, p. 125.

[780] Tom. iii. p. 9.

[781] _Principles of Sociology_, vol. i. p. 53.

[782] _Ency. Brit._, art. “Bacon, Roger.”

[783] _History of Inductive Sciences_, vol. i. p. 341.

[784] _Ibid._, p. 342.

[785] Mullinger’s _Hist. Cambridge Univ._, p. 170 note.

[786] _Hist. Univ. Oxford._

[787] Or College of SS. Cosmas and Damian. See p. 234 of this work.

[788] Wood’s _University of Oxford_, vol. i. p. 293.

[789] Aubrey, _Hist. England_, vol. i. p. 426.

[790] Aubrey, _Hist. England_, vol. i. p. 682.

[791] Baas, _Hist. Med._

[792] _Ency. Brit._, art. “Anatomy.”

[793] _Ibid._

[794] Puschmann, _Hist. Med. Educ._, p. 246.

[795] _Ency. Brit._, art. “Medicine.”

[796] Hist. of _Univ. of Oxford_, vol. i. p. 444.

[797] _Ibid._, p. 446.

[798] _Ibid._, p. 447.

[799] _Epidemics of the Middle Ages_, p. 13.

[800] Hecker’s _Epidemics_, p. 96.

[801] _Ibid._, p. 100.

[802] _History of Inventions_, loc. cit.

[803] _Hist. Med. Superstit._, pp. 37, 38.

[804] _Loseley MSS._, p. 263.

[805] _The Loseley MSS._, p. 264.

[806] Bede’s _Ecclesiastical History_, B. v. c. 3.

[807] _English Chronicle_, p. 1,038.

[808] Stow’s _Chron._, p 381.

[809] _Horda Angel-Cynnan_, vol. ii. p. 71.

[810] _Ibid._

[811] Pastor, _History of the Popes_, vol. ii. p. 23.

[812] _History of the Papacy_, etc., vol. ii.

[813] _Ency. Brit._, art. “Leonardo.”

[814] _Hist. Epidemics_, p. 181.

[815] _Chronicles_, vol. iii. p. 482.

[816] Hecker’s _Epidemics_, p. 186.

[817] _Ibid._

[818] Hecker’s _Epidemics_, p. 118.

[819] See Beckmann’s _Hist. Inv._, art. “Quarantine.”

[820] Meryon, _Hist. Med._, vol. i. p. 339.

[821] _University of Oxford_, vol. i. pp. 564, 565.

[822] _Chronicles of England, etc._, vol. i. p. 273.

[823] Mullinger’s _Univ. Cambridge_, p. 168.

[824] Art. “Pathology,” _Ency. Brit._, xviii. p. 404.

[825] Vickers’ _Martyrdoms of Literature_, p. 169.

[826] Aglio’s _Antiquities of Mexico_, vol. viii. p. 234.

[827] _Ibid._, vol. vi. p. 526.

[828] Aglio’s _Antiquities of Mexico_, vol. vi. p. 272.

[829] Morley, _Life of Cornelius Agrippa_, vol. i. p. 213.

[830] _H. C. Agripp._, ep. 23, lib. i. p. 702. Prefixed also to all
editions of the _De Occ. Phil._ (Note by Mr. Morley.)

[831] Whewell, _Hist. of Scientific Ideas_, vol. ii. p. 177.

[832] Baas, _Hist. Med._, p. 386.

[833] _De abditis rerum causis_, Florent., 1507.

[834] _Epidemics_, p. 218.

[835] 3 Henry VIII., c. 9.

[836] Dr. Goodall’s _History of the College of Physicians_.

[837] Aubrey, _Hist. Eng._, vol. ii. p. 535.

[838] _Ibid._

[839] _Hist. Eng._, vol. ii. p. 296.

[840] Munk, _Roll of the Royal College of Physicians of London_, p. 1.

[841] Wood, _Hist. Oxford_, vol. ii. p. 862.

[842] I am indebted for the above facts to Dr. Furnivall’s edition of
Vicary’s _Anatomie_, published for the Early English Text Society.

[843] _Captain Cox, his Ballads and Books._ Dr. Furnivall’s edition,
published for the Ballad Society, p. ci.

[844] Pratt, _Flowering Plants_, vol. i. p. 91.

[845] Munk’s _Roll of the Royal College_, etc., p. 62.

[846] _Times_, May 20, 1876, p. 6. Hallam, _Literary History_, etc.,
vol. ii. p. 233.

[847] _Hist. Oxford_, vol. ii. p. 62.

[848] _De morbis contagiosis_, lib. ii. cap. ix.

[849] _Ency. Brit._

[850] _Literature of Europe_, chap. ix. sect. 2, 13.

[851] Portal, _Tiraboschi_, ix. 34.

[852] _Hist. Med._, p. 427.

[853] _Lit. of Europe_, chap. ix. sect. 2.

[854] Puschmann’s _Hist. Med. Education_, p. 305.

[855] Laënnec, _Diseases of the Chest, etc._, p 112.

[856] Meryon, _Hist. Med._, vol. i. p. 467.

[857] _Works_, vol. xiii. p. 394.

[858] p. 436, ed. 1827.

[859] Brand’s _Popular Antiquities_, vol. iii. p. 160.

[860] Furnivall’s ed. _Boorde_, Early English Text Society, 1870, p.
121.

[861] _Breviary of Health_, fol. 80 b.

[862] In Dr. Furnivall’s _Captain Cox_, published for the Ballad
Society, 1891, p. 35.

[863] Evelyn’s _Diary_, vol. ii. p. 151.

[864] Notes to _Pepys’ Diary_, vol. i. p. 90.

[865] _William of Malmesbury’s Chronicle_, Book II. chap. 13.

[866] _Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain_, vol. i. p. 225.

[867] See for a complete history of the royal gift of healing
Pettigrew’s _Medical Superstitions_, p. 117.

[868] Meryon, _Hist. Med._, vol. i. p. 423.

[869] Hakluyt’s _Voyages_, vol. iii. p. 280.

[870] _Description of England_, chap. xix.

[871] See Gamgee, “Third Historical Fragment,” in _Lancet_, 1876.

[872] Cap. _Études Biographiques_, sec. i. pp. 84-89.

[873] _Cornelius Agrippa_, vol. i. p. 62.

[874] _Ency. Brit._, vol. xv. p. 782.

[875] See the article on Bacon in _Ency. Brit._, vol. iii. p. 217.

[876] Œuvres, iii. 24.

[877] _Ibid._, vi. 234.

[878] _Ibid._, vi. 89.

[879] _Ibid._, ix. 426.

[880] Œuvres, x. 204.

[881] _Ibid._, iv. 452 and 454.

[882] _Ency. Brit._, art. “Descartes.”

[883] Wood, _Hist. Oxford_, vol. ii. p. 883.

[884] _Ibid._

[885] See Thomson’s _Life of Cullen_, vol. i. p. 212.

[886] Munk, _Roll of the R.C.P., etc._, p. 281.

[887] _Philosophical Transactions_, May 7th, 1666.

[888] Dr. Latham’s _Life of Sydenham_.

[889] _Ibid._

[890] _De Spiritu_, v. 1078. There is some doubt as to the genuineness
of this work.

[891] Whewell, _Hist. Induct. Sciences_, vol. iii. p. 394.

[892] _Ibid._

[893] _Christianismi Restitutio_ (1553).

[894] _Ency. Brit._, art. “Harvey.”

[895] _De Re Anatomica_ (1559).

[896] Whewell, _loc. cit._

[897] Sylvius discovered their existence; but Fabricius remarked that
they were all turned towards the heart.

[898] _Ency. Brit._, art. “Harvey.”

[899] _Generation of Animals._

[900] Harvey, _On the Circulation_. Dr. Bowie’s edit.

[901] Harvey, _On the Circulation of the Blood_. Bohn’s edit., revised
by Dr. Bowie, 1889.

[902] Thomson’s _Life of Cullen_, vol. i. p. 206. Willis, _Anatomy of
the Brain_, chaps. xv.-xvii.

[903] _Pharmaceutike Rationalis_, London, 1675. Præfatio.

[904] Thomson’s _Life of Cullen_, vol. ii. p. 546.

[905] _Ibid._, p. 547.

[906] _Life of Cullen_, vol. ii. p. 536.

[907] Cooper’s _Surgical Dictionary_, p. 773.

[908] Cap. _Études Biographiques_, Ser. i. p. 120.

[909] See _British Medical Journal_, June 11, 1892, p. 1263.

[910] Baas’ _Hist. Med._, p. 159.

[911] _Ibid._

[912] _Ibid._, p. 184.

[913] _Ibid._, p. 187.

[914] _The Doctor_, p. 39.

[915] _Denmark, Hygiene and Demography_, p. 57.

[916] _Hist. Med._, p. 517.

[917] _Ibid._, p. 545.

[918] _Ibid._, p. 547.

[919] Gomme, _Ethnology in Folklore_, p. 114.

[920] Dyer, _English Folklore_, p. 150.

[921] Rogers, _Social Life in Scotland_, iii. 226.

[922] Gomme, _Ethnology in Folklore_, pp. 114, 115. Dyer, _English
Folklore_, p. 147. Rogers, _Social Life in Scotland_, iii. 225.

[923] Boyle, _Porousness of Animal Bodies_. Works, vol. iv. p. 767.
Floyer, _Touchstone of Medicines_, vol. i. p. 154.

[924] _Medical Superstitions_, p. 161.

[925] Sir K. Digby, _Powder of Sympathy_, p. 97.

[926] _Ibid._, p. 76.

[927] Pettigrew’s _Medical Superstitions_, p. 155.

[928] _Pers. Narr._, iv. 195.

[929] _Himalayan Journals_, ed. 1891, p. 371.

[930] _Ibid._, p. 214.

[931] _Medica Sacra_, p. 62.

[932] Pliny, _Nat. Hist._, bk. xxxi. c. 32.

[933] _Pharmaceutical Journal._

[934] John Russell’s _Boke of Nurture_, 991-1000.

[935] Pellitory of the wall, which abounds in nitrate of potass.

[936] Probably _Peucedanum officinale_.

[937] Danewort.

[938] St. John’s wort.

[939] Centaury.

[940] Plantain.

[941] _Glechoma hederacea._

[942] _Galium Aparine_, prescribed in _Leechdoms_, v. 2, p. 345, for a
“salve against the elfin race and nocturnal [goblin] visitors, and for
the woman with whom the devil hath carnal commerce.”

[943] Avens.

[944] Bruise wort, pimpernel, or perhaps for Hembriswort, daisy.

[945] Smallage, or wild-water parsley.

[946] Brooklime.

[947] Scabious.

[948] John Russell’s _Boke of Nurture_, Harl. MS. 4011, Fol. 171. The
notes are from Dr. Furnivall’s edition.

[949] _State Trials_, 951.

[950] Dr. E. B. Tylor, art. “Magic,” _Ency. Brit._ See Ellis,
_Polynesian Researches_; Turner, _Nineteen Years in Polynesia_; Polack,
_Manners and Customs of New Zealanders_; Waitz, vols. v., vi.; all
works mentioned by Dr. Tylor.

[951] Saxon _Leechdoms_, vol. i. Pref., xxxii.

[952] _Nat. Hist._, Book xxx. chap. i.

[953] Goodwin, _Lives of the Necromancers_, pp. 127-132.

[954] _Heroid._, vi. 91.

      “Simulacraque cerea fingit,
  Et miserum tenuis in jecur urget acus.”


[955] Gordon Cumming’s _Wanderings in China_, vol. i. p. 336.

[956] Vol. i. p. 336. See also _In the Hebrides_, pp. 263-265. C. F.
Gordon-Cumming.

[957] _Ethnology in Folklore_, p. 51.

[958] Plato, _Laws_, lib. xi.

[959] _Nat. Hist._, Book xxviii. ch. 24.

[960] _Ethnology in Folklore_, p. 87.

[961] Idyl ii.

[962] Hecker’s _Epidemics_, p. 102.

[963] Book xxi. 92.

[964] Book xxiv. 42.

[965] Sir James Emerson Tennent’s _Ceylon_, vol. ii. p. 545.

[966] _Custom and Myth_, p. 200.

[967] _Ibid._, p. 169.

[968] _Records of the Past_, vol. iii. p. 141.

[969] _Saxon Leechdoms._

[970] Eynatten, _Manualis Exorcismorum_, 1619, p. 220, quoted in _Saxon
Leechdoms_, vol. i. Preface, p. xliv.

[971] _Short Discoverie_, etc., 4to, London, 1612, p. 71.

[972] Brand’s _Popular Antiquities_, 1842, vol. iii. p. 6.

[973] London, 1886, p. 167.

[974] _Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie._

[975] _Mysteries of Magic_, Waite, pp. 167, 168.

[976] _Daily Chronicle_, June 11th, 1892.

[977] Simpson, “Ancient Buddhist Remains in Afghanistan,” _Fraser’s
Mag._, New Ser., No. cxxii., Feb. 1880, pp. 197, 198.

[978] _Mysteries of Magic_, A. E. Waite (London, 1886), p. 135.

[979] _Mysteries of Magic_, p. 157.

[980] Dyer, _English Folklore_, p. 154.

[981] Denny’s _Folklore of China_, p. 51; _Irish Popular and Medical
Superstitions_, p. 3.

[982] _Folk Medicine_, p. 99.

[983] _Notes and Queries_, 5th S., vol. vi. p. 97.

[984] _Folk Medicine_, p. 33.

[985] Pliny.

[986] _Primitive Culture_, vol. ii. p. 137.

[987] _Folk Medicine_, p. 41.

[988] Paris’s _Pharmacologia_, p. 51.

[989] _The Doctor_, p. 59.

[990] Vol. ii. pp. 175, _et seq._

[991] Whewell, _Hist. of Scientific Ideas_, vol. ii. p. 184.

[992] Whewell, _Hist. of Scientific Ideas_, vol. ii. p. 185.

[993] Περὶ ψυχῆς, ii. 2.

[994] _Life of Dr. Cullen_, vol. i. p. 102.

[995] Whewell’s _History of Scientific Ideas_, vol. ii. pp. 16, 17.

[996] Cap. xiv. p. 233.

[997] Thomson’s _Life of Cullen_, vol. i. pp. 177, 178.

[998] Thomson’s _Life of Cullen_, vol. i. pp. 177, 178.

[999] Cullen’s Works, vol. i. pp. 405, 406.

[1000] Thomson’s _Life of Dr. Cullen_, vol. i. p. 185.

[1001] Baas, _Hist. Med._, p. 750.

[1002] Works, vol. i. p. 442.

[1003] Thomson’s _Life of Cullen_, vol. ii. p. 134.

[1004] Munk’s _Roll of the R. Coll. Phys._

[1005] _Ibid._, vol. ii. p. 262. He published in 1765, _A Discourse on
the Institution of Medical Schools in America_.

[1006] _Philosophical Transactions_, vol. xlix. p. 477, and Munk’s
_Roll of the R. Coll. Phys._, vol. ii. p. 282. This was one of the
cases in which experiments on the lower animals have been of service
to mankind. Mr. Spry’s character for veracity seems to have been
re-established by them.

[1007] Baas, _Hist. Med._, p. 648.

[1008] _The Gold-headed Cane._

[1009] _Medica Sacra_ (1755), pp. 21, 22.

[1010] _Surgical Dictionary_, art. “Surgery.”

[1011] Resection is the removal of the articular extremity of a bone,
or the ends of the bones in a false articulation.

[1012] Puschmann, _Hist. Med. Education_, p. 422.

[1013] _Hist. Med. Education_, p. 427.

[1014] Baas, _Hist. Med._, p. 677.

[1015] Munk’s _Roll of the Royal Coll. Phys._, vol. ii. p. 125.

[1016] _Ibid._

[1017] _Ibid._, p. 130.

[1018] _Literature of Europe_, vol. iv. p. 354.

[1019] Munk’s _Roll of the R. Coll. Phys._, vol. ii. p. 408.

[1020] _Roll of the R. Coll. of Phys._, vol. ii. p. 160.

[1021] Baas, _Hist. Med._, p. 713.

[1022] Published by the Pharmaceutical Society, 1880.

[1023] _Hist. Med._, p. 868.

[1024] _Letter to Hufeland._

[1025] _Medical Profession_, p. 93.

[1026] _Medical Profession_, p. 93.

[1027] _De Magnete_, p. 48.

[1028] Whewell, _Hist. Induct. Sciences_, vol. iii. p. 7.

[1029] _History of Inventions_, vol. i. p. 72.

[1030] _Ibid._, p. 74.

[1031] Laënnec, _Treatise on Diseases of the Chest_, p. 5.

[1032] A few only of the more prominent physicians, surgeons, and
scientists are mentioned here; to do more would interfere with the plan
of this work.

[1033] _Ency. Brit._, art. “Animal Magnetism,” vol. xv. p. 279.

[1034] _Voyage fait à Londres en 1814._ See also Cooper’s _Surgical
Dict._, art. “Fractures.”

[1035] “Discovery of Chloroform,” in Miller’s _Surgery_, pp. 756-758,
2nd Ed.

[1036] p. 28.

[1037] _Ency. Brit._, art. “Insanity.”

[1038] _Hospitals and Asylums of the World._

[1039] Adams’ _Hippocrates_, vol. i. p. 77.

[1040] _Ency. Brit._, art. “Insanity.”

[1041] _Hospitals and Asylums_, vol. i. p. 62.

[1042] _Hist. Med._, p. 347.

[1043] Cruikshank, _Bacteriology_, p. 2.

[1044] Woodhead, _Bacteria and their Products_, p. 52.

[1045] _Opera Medico-Physica, Tractatio de Contagio, le Lue Bovina, de
Variolis; de Scarlatina._

[1046] _Bacteria and their Products_, p. 59.

[1047] Schwann (1810-1882) discovered the influence of the lower fungi
in causing fermentation and putrefaction, so that he may be called the
father of the germ theory of disease.

[1048] _Manual of Bacteriology_, p. 16.

[1049] _Bacteria and their Products_, p. 328.

[1050] See Appendix E, _Cruikshank’s Bacteriology_, p. 414.

[1051] Cruikshank, _Bacteriology_, p. 192.

[1052] _Ibid._, p. 196.

[1053] Woodhead, _Bacteria, etc._, p. 327.

[1054] Parkes’ _Hygiene_, Introduction.

[1055] Baas, _Hist. of Med._, p. 1083.

[1056] _Lancet_, Oct. 29th, 1892, p. 1013.

[1057] Professor Charcot in the _New Review_, Jan., 1893.

[1058] See p. 320 of this work.

[1059] Charcot, _The Faith Cure_.

[1060] Baas, _Hist. Med._, p. 1100.

[1061] _Ency. Brit._, art. “Physiology,” vol. xix. p. 23.




      *      *      *      *      *      *




Transcriber’s note:

Obvious typographical errors have been silently corrected. Where
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hyphenation, spelling and accents have been standardised, but all other
spelling and punctuation remains unchanged.

The precise reference of footnote 662 is not known so the link has
been placed at the earliest possible place on the page.





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